Georgia jails another opposition figure in crackdown on dissent
The EU candidate nation has been gripped by political unrest since the disputed parliamentary elections last October, when the ruling Georgian Dream party declared victory, sparking mass protests.
Demonstrators accuse the ruling party, which shelved EU membership talks, of veering toward authoritarian rule and steering the country closer to Moscow — accusations the government rejects.
On Tuesday, a Tbilisi court sentenced Gvaramia — the co-leader of the key opposition Akhali party — to eight months in prison and barred him from holding public office for two years, his lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili told AFP.
'The verdict is unlawful and part of the government's attempt to crush all dissent in Georgia,' he said.
Gvaramia was sentenced for refusing to cooperate with a parliamentary commission investigating alleged abuses under imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
Nearly all of Georgia's opposition leaders have been jailed this month on similar charges.
Saakashvili, a pro-Western reformer, is currently serving a 12-and-a-half-year prison term on charges widely denounced by rights groups as politically driven.
Opposition figures have rejected the commission's legitimacy, accusing the ruling Georgian Dream party of using it as a tool to suppress dissent.
Amnesty International said last week that the 'disputed' commission 'has been instrumentalized to target former public officials for their principled opposition.'
Ahead of last year's elections, Georgian Dream announced plans to outlaw all major opposition parties.
Brussels has said Georgia's democratic backsliding derails it from its longstanding EU membership bid enshrined in the country's constitution and supported — according to opinion polls — by some 80 percent of the population.
The United States and several European countries have imposed sanctions on some Georgian Dream officials.
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Arab News
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