Mental health professionals condemn use of psychiatry in activist’s case, warn of return to Soviet-era repression

Mental health organizations, professional associations, and specialists in Georgia are raising alarms over the judiciary's decision to order a psychiatric evaluation for detained activist and teacher Nino Datashvili, calling it a dangerous precedent reminiscent of authoritarian regimes. They have issued a public statement and are collecting signatures in protest.

The professionals strongly condemn what they describe as the “political use of psychiatry”, warning that such practices are characteristic of “political repression in authoritarian and dictatorial systems.” They are urging the Georgian justice system to “eliminate any such attempts at their inception.”

On August 2, the organization Partnership for Human Rights reported that the Prosecutor’s Office requested a psychiatric evaluation for Datashvili, a motion that was approved by the court.

“In the Soviet Union, isolating dissidents through forced hospitalization and so-called treatment in psychiatric institutions was a common method of political punishment,” the statement reads. “According to international standards, such practices are qualified as torture and inhuman treatment.”

Experts say Datashvili's case is especially alarming due to several factors:

- Six years ago, she developed emotional and psychological difficulties in response to severe chronic pain caused by spinal disc damage — a well-known and natural reaction to chronic physical suffering.

- Her Form 100 (a standard medical document in Georgia) mentioned emotional lability alongside her primary diagnosis. However, experts stress that emotional lability is not a clinical disorder under any recognized diagnostic system.

“The Prosecutor’s Office used this outdated medical information to justify a psychiatric examination for legal incompetency, and the court accepted it,” the statement notes. “This points to an attempt to use psychiatry as a tool of political repression in today’s judiciary system.”

As a result, Datashvili now faces 20 days of involuntary psychiatric observation at the National Bureau of Forensic Expertise — a move specialists say has no legal or medical basis, as emotional lability is not grounds for determining legal insanity.

The mental health community also emphasized that “one in four people experiences emotional lability at least once in their lives.” Ordering psychiatric assessments on such grounds — especially without the individual’s consent or participation in the decision — violates fundamental human rights and may amount to inhumane and degrading treatment.

“If this practice continues, and medicine becomes a weapon for retaliation, then tragedies like that of Nazi Shamanauri could become part of our new reality,” the specialists warn.

They are calling on the Georgian judiciary to uphold human rights standards and refrain from misusing psychiatric tools for political or punitive purposes.