Adopted amendments to the criminal code, which expands on previous hate crime laws, authorize courts, when imposing a sentence, to consider the commission of an offence on the basis of bias motivation on such grounds as "race, colour, language, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religion, political or other opinion, disability, nationality, citizenship, ethnic or social origin" among other factors, as an aggravating circumstance for all relevant crimes in the criminal code.
The South Caucasus Regional Office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation reported one incident in which a Jehovah’s Witness was physically assaulted by three men and another incident in which two Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered knife wounds in a physical assault by a group of five men.
Identoba reported the physical assault of a gay man by a group of ten people and the physical assault of a gay man by his family.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended that Georgia amend legislation to ensure racist motivation is considered an aggravating circumstance for all crimes; conduct awareness-raising campaigns on criminal laws on hate crime; deliver training for the criminal justice system (police, prosecutors and judges); and collect disaggregated hate crime data.
UNHCR reported five assaults against Jehovah’s Witnesses.