In Georgia, a police officer's cheek ranks above all

OC Media

08-08-2025

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It was hard to find anyone around me who had positive expectations about journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli's trial.
Her colleagues and friends, whom I had spoken to since her detention, especially in the final week leading up to the verdict, were emotionally preparing themselves for the worst-case scenario:
The court would agree with the prosecution's claim that the slap Amaghlobeli gave to Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze after a heated exchange should be considered an 'assault on a police officer' — a charge punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Such expectations were quite logical: even before the verdict, the Georgian state had gone to great lengths to portray Amaghlobeli as a criminal unworthy of spending even a single day of almost a seven months-long pre-trial period outside prison walls. Even Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze joined the campaign, pushing a theory that Amaghlobeli slapped Dgebuadze on prior instructions as part of a greater plan to discredit Georgian law enforcement agencies.
Would the Georgian courts, widely regarded by critics as being directly subordinate to the political authorities, take a different stance? Past experiences hardly gave Amaghlobeli's supporters any reason for such optimism. They believed the state wanted to make an example out of a media founder, and that it would definitely do so.
I've known Amaghlobeli since 2017, when I joined Netgazeti — the sister outlet of the Batumelebi newspaper which she and her friend Eter Turadze founded in the coastal city of Batumi back in 2001. Over the years, both outlets have earned a reputation as trusted sources, thanks to their uncompromising coverage of state corruption, human rights violations, and the government's intolerance of dissent.
Critics inside and outside Georgia believe that Amaghlobeli ended up behind bars as a victim of one of the very problems — a corrupt judiciary and police — that Batumelebi consistently exposed under all three governments it has witnessed throughout its history.
Amaghlobeli's case hasn't been important to me just because I know her personally, nor because it's the first time state repression has directly touched someone close to me. What troubles me just as much is the disproportionate, almost dystopian nature of the case itself:
Up to seven years in prison for a slap; months of legal debate over whether the Batumi police chief's cheek was actually injured; and repeated court approvals of the prosecution's claim that a 50-year-old woman with no criminal record — who went on hunger strike for the first 38 days of her detention and nearly lost her vision during her time in prison — posed a risk of reoffending and should remain in pre-trial detention.
I'm not even mentioning the inconsistencies the defence claimed in both the administrative and criminal cases against Amaghlobeli, nor the police testimonies that were, in several instances, nearly identical. Nor am I talking about the fact that in the past, Georgia's courts have applied far lighter charges in cases involving serious violence against police officers.
All this, while Dgebuadze — who, according to Amaghlobeli, swore at her, spat on her, and even denied her access to a toilet during detention — continues his job without consequences. The same goes for the police officers who beat, humiliated, and robbed protesters and journalists during the November–December rallies with shocking brutality, yet were never held accountable.
During the final hearings, it wasn't just Amaghlobeli's friends and colleagues who gathered outside the Batumi courthouse — who I saw there also included activists, people from across generations and professional fields both from Batumi and other parts across Georgia.
Most moving of all were those who had been previously helped by Batumelebi in their own fights against injustice.
'If someone shoots at you [journalists], I'll throw myself in front so you don't get hit', a middle-aged woman told me while I was interviewing people at Amaghlobeli's rally. As it turned out later, she was a homeless citizen, whose plea to the local government for housing had been covered by Batumelebi.
Another woman stood at the protest holding a 14-year-old issue of Batumelebi, which featured an article on the main page about the woman's efforts to find her niece, who had been placed in a psychiatric institution involuntarily, with her family unaware for months of her exact whereabouts.
'If journalists like this were sitting in parliament [as MPs], we'd be thriving today!' she shouted outside the courthouse.
On the day the verdict was finally announced — after two previous hearings had ended without one, despite expectations — the courtroom was packed with Amaghlobeli's friends and supporters. Unlike the last time, I managed to get inside as well. As always, the entire room welcomed Amaghlobeli with chants of support the moment she entered.
I'll never forget that one second when the courtroom erupted in joy — right after Judge Nino Sakhelashvili said, 'The charge against Mzia Amaghlobeli shall be reclassified…' It was a fleeting moment of hope, when people believed the state had finally backed down in her favour. But the joy was short-lived: although the charge was indeed reclassified under a lighter article, Amaghlobeli was still sentenced to two years in prison.
As we left the courtroom, the atmosphere was filled with mixed emotions. Two years certainly sounded lighter than four, six, or seven — but was justice really served?
'In terms of justice, nothing has changed — this is still an unfair decision, just repackaged as a two-year sentence', Eter Turadze, Batumelebi's editor-in-chief, told me after the hearing.
We had a short conversation outside the publication's office, where Amaghlobeli's supporters had gathered after leaving the courthouse.
'This isn't just about Mzia: it concerns every citizen of this country. They created a precedent where a 50 year-old woman with a serious health condition […] can be imprisoned for two years over Dgebuadze's cheek. It's a dehumanising environment', she added.
Even some Georgian Dream supporters can't fully justify what Turadze is talking about: according to a June survey by the Georgian research organisation ISSA, the majority of Georgians (59%) found the charges against Amaghlobeli unfair — including 70% in Tbilisi, 54% in the regions, and 22% of Georgian Dream supporters. Among the ruling party's voters, 23% also either had no answer or refused to respond.
While in Batumi, I kept thinking about how Amaghlobeli used to shy away from fame — she was barely active even on social media.
And yet now, thanks to the Georgian state, she has become a symbol of resistance for many — one encouraging others with smiles, gestures of defiance, and a phrase from one of her letters that became a motto of the campaign in her support:
'Fight, before it's too late'.