Georgia sends another opposition politician to prison
Georgian opposition politician Giorgi Vashadze was sentenced to seven months in prison on Tuesday, the latest verdict in a crackdown that has placed nearly all of Georgia's major opposition figures behind bars.
Authorities have clamped down on leading figures of the pro-European Union opposition after weathering major protests last year over a disputed October election and a subsequent government decision to halt talks on joining the EU.
Vashadze, a 43-year-old career politician, was found guilty of refusing to testify to a parliamentary commission investigating alleged wrongdoing under jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who led the South Caucasus country from 2004 to 2012.
On Tuesday, three other Georgian opposition figures were jailed on the same charge. Vashadze, like the others, was also barred from holding public office for two years.
Vashadze is a leader of Strategy Builder, a party that is part of a wider opposition coalition that came third in last year's election. The Georgian Dream party, which won a fourth term in power, has rejected allegations of vote-rigging.
"We are fighting for the liberation of Georgia," Vashadze was quoted as saying by the Interpress news agency ahead of the court's verdict.
"The main thing is to be united; the imprisonment of me and those people is nothing," he said, referring to the other jailed politicians.
Traditionally one of the most pro-Western countries to emerge from the Soviet Union, Georgia has taken a sharply authoritarian turn in recent years, critics say, pivoting away from the West and back towards Russia.
Separately, Georgian poet Zviad Ratiani, a prominent figure at street protests, was arrested in Tbilisi on Monday night on charges of assaulting a police officer, Interpress reported.
The demonstrations have continued nightly for over 200 days but the number of protesters has diminished considerably in recent months. REUTERS
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