Georgians Stay Defiant After 50+ Days of Protests
11/28/2024 - Protesters wave Georgian and European Union flags in front of Parliament as authorities spray water laced with unidentified chemical irritants.
1/21/2025
By: Daniel Miller
It’s been 54 days since Prime Minister Irakhli Khobakhidze violated his party’s main campaign promise by announcing that he would suspend moves to join the European Union (EU) until late 2028. This announcement sparked a wave of protests that have now passed the fifty-day mark and have led to hundreds of arrests and human rights violations in the form of severe beatings, torture, and false imprisonment. With many nights reaching in the tens of thousands, protesters remain defiant despite sweeping new repressive laws aimed at curbing their right to protest, assemble, and express their discontent at the ruling – and illegitimate – Georgian Dream (GD) party.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has arrested over 500 people in connection with the protests, with over 400 of those reporting human rights abuses in the form of severe beatings, verbal abuse, humiliation, and torture. Most of these alleged violations happened within the first ten days of the announcement. In court, police testimony is heard while the defendants are ignored. On December 29, 2024, former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili was sworn in by GD as the country’s new president, plunging the country even further into a political crisis as the fifth president, Salome Zourabichvili, continues laying claim to the position’s legitimacy.
Kavelashvili wasted no time signing draconian laws targeting protesters like those passed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych during the 2013-14 Maidan Revolution. And just like their Black Sea brothers did at Independence Square during that fateful era, Georgians are responding to the laws in their own clever and sarcastic ways. Ukrainians responded to mask and helmet bans by wearing plastic bottles over their faces and kitchen pots over their heads, while Georgians responded by wearing masks depicting the face of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, the financier of the party and de facto ruler of the country.
Another new law granted police the authority to arrest small crowds of protesters blocking the road, so they decided to simply march back and forth over the crosswalks instead.
The use and mere possession of pyrotechnics is now illegal, so of course the protesters fire away in front of the police.
However, these acts have led to several detainments, beatings, and arrests. In the small western city of Zugdidi, activist Mariam Sichinava was arrested for wearing a mask while shooting fireworks in front of the police station. Six more were detained outside a police department in northern Tbilisi, but it was reported that not all of them were wearing masks.
On January 11, 2025, journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli, founder and editor-in-chief of the prominent online publications Batumelebi and Netgazeti, was arrested during a protest in the coastal city of Batumi, on the charge of assaulting a police officer. Her arrest has been condemned by multiple independent organizations. The next day, protests intensified in Batumi and Tbilisi, with a demand for Amaghlobeli’s release. Outside of Batumi’s Constitutional Court, Helen Khoshtaria, leader of the Droa opposition party, was detained while party member Shushana Matsaberidze was arrested along with senior member Giorgi Kirtadze of the Coalition for Change party. A judge declared Amaghlobeli was at a high risk of repeating a criminal offense and is currently being held in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors are seeking the maximum sentence of seven years.
The following Wednesday, January 15th, a three-hour, nationwide business strike occurred from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm. At the same time, students began occupying university lobbies and classrooms, demanding the release of all unlawfully detained political prisoners and the scheduling of new parliamentary elections. That Saturday night, two masked, unidentified men abducted two people and drove them to a temporary detention center. At an office of the opposition party Strong Georgia, coalition reps were allegedly attacked by regime thugs known as Titushky. Both were wielding knives, and a hefty rock was thrown at one of them.
As pre-trial detention has passed the halfway mark for many of those arrested in the earlier days of the protests, corrupt judges in the pockets of the ruling party will be adjudicating the cases. Though corrupt, they’re at least qualified to try cases – unlike Nino Sakhelashvili, who is adjudicating Mia Amaghlobeli’s case despite never having passed her criminal law exam. The Georgian people see through this obvious charade, with one man wearing a clown nose to a court hearing.
These moves are finally forcing politicians to join the push with South Carolina’s Joe Wilson, a Republican congressman who has been the most vocal about the democratic backsliding and crimes being perpetrated by the Georgian Dream. In May 2024, as a response to GD passing the Russian-style “foreign agents” bill, Wilson introduced legislation to strengthen democracy, human rights, and the rule of law while countering authoritarian influences. Recently, he introduced the “Georgian Nightmare Non-Recognition Act,” which would formally assert the United States’ position of not recognizing the legitimacy of the Georgian Dream party.
While various countries have imposed multiple sanctions against members of the GD party, sanctions from the United Kingdom against oligarch Ivanishvili are potentially just around the corner. If passed, the sanctions would have a crippling effect on Ivanishvili’s empire and those closest to him.
