Linked with IACERHRG, and with APRRA.
She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
She says: « My dream is to see happy faces of people, living in their native lands, using their real human rights, guaranteed them by the state laws » … and: « Improvement of the health of more than 150 refugees and more than 20 political prisoners is my biggest achievement ».
Sorry, I can not find any photo of Tsisana Rapava, Georgia (see also my comment ‘Brave women without photos‘).
She works for the Association for Protection of the Rights of the Refugees from Abkhazia APRRA. And she was a cofounder of the International Association Caucasus: Ethnic Relations, Human Rights, Geopolitics.
Tsisana Rapava is an economist and a remarkable public figure of Georgia. She works on the problems of refugees from Abkhazia (Autonomous Republic of Georgia), South Ossetia (Shida Kartli region of Georgia), and the Chechen Republic. She herself is a refugee from Abkhazia. A well-known public person, Tsisana actively participated in the movement for the restoration of the independence of the state of Georgia.
She is currently residing in Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. She graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the Tbilisi State University. Since the beginning of 1994 she has been a refugee from Abkhazia. During the violent Abkhazian-Georgian conflict in November 1993 her son, Giorgi Rukhadze, disappeared and was later declared missing. She also has a daughter.
Tsisana has been known as an active public-spirited person since 1987, when the movement for the restoration of Georgia’s national and state independence gained new momentum. From 1989 to 1997, Tsisana was a member of the Georgian Helsinki Union (GHU), founded by Dr. Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia and Merab I. Kostava in 1976. It was the first Helsinki Group in the former Soviet empire. From 1997 to 2000, she was a member of the Council of the Georgian National Section of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR-IGFM), and a member of the governing board of the Georgian National Section of the Society.
In October 1998, Tsisana co-founded the international association Caucasus: Ethnic Relations, Human Rights, Geopolitics (IACERHRG), and became a member of the governing board of the Georgian national branch. On 13 November 2004 at the 6th Annual Conference of the IACERHRG, a decision was made to rename the Association and change its priorities. It was renamed the Association for Protection of the Rights of the Refugees from Abkhazia (APRRA). Tsisana was unanimously elected the Chairperson.
Since early 1994, Tsisana has been an active and committed defender of the rights of refugees from Abkhazia, whose outflow was the result of the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict inspired and orchestrated by the Kremlin. The conflict also resulted in the loss of Georgia’s territorial integrity and the ethnic cleansing of Georgian people. After that tragic event, over 250,000 ethnic Georgians were driven away from their native land.
In addition to defending the refugees’ rights, Tsisana was also an active defender of numerous political prisoners, who were supporters of the human rights leader and first President of independent Georgia, Dr. Zviad K. Gamsakhurdia (1939-1993), arrested after the military-criminal coup d’etat in December-January 1991-1992. During the period of 1996-1998, Tsisana openly fought against the mass violation of human rights and basic freedoms under E. Shevardnadze’s regime. Because of her active participation in peaceful protest actions, Tsisana was repeatedly detained and exposed to persecution.
On 2 November 2003, Tsisana was among the Group of International Observers during the Parliamentary Elections, elections that were considered to be a mock’ rights, recorded in the report of the IACERHRG’s Group of International Observers, Tsisana joined the resistance movement and actively supported the International Georgian Rose Revolution, which ended Shevardnadze’s dictatorial regime.
Tsisana has also been active on the international scene. Since 1997, she has been actively supporting the rights of refugees from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. She was also an active participant in the 28-29 October 1998 Netherlands Helsinki Union (NHU) and the International Helsinki Conference.
Since 1994, Tsisana has been participating in and leading a number of humanitarian actions to assist refugees and prisoners. With the support of ISHR-IGFM, she attended the Netherlands Conference on Genocide of the Caucasian Peoples in Tbilisi. Then, in February 23-25 of 2000, she was a participant in the International Congress on the Contemporary World and Human Rights in Georgia that took place in Batumi, capital of the Autonomous Republic of Ajara, Republic of Georgia.
From 1995 to 2003, Tsisana took part in the publication of the Independent Analytical Bulletin ‘Adamianis Uplebebi’ (Human Rights). Despite her personal tragedy, when her 20-year-old son, Giorgi Rukhadze, went missing during the bloody Abaksyan-Georgian conflict in November 1993, Tsisana Rapava has continued to defend the rights of refugees. (1000PeaceWomen).
links:
All Georgian organisations for Human Rights protection;
Escape Artists.com;
European Journal of International Law, Discussion Forum;