Latest news with #GeorgianDreamgovernment
Al Jazeera
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Georgia court hands ex-President Saakashvili further 4.5 years in prison
A Georgian court has sentenced former President Mikheil Saakashvili to four and a half years behind bars for illegally crossing the border. Monday's ruling followed on the heels of a nine-year sentence imposed on Saakashvili last Wednesday and raises the already jailed pro-Western politician's time behind bars to 12 and a half years. Opposition groups insist that the sentences are politically motivated and that the Georgian Dream government, which is accused of abusing democracy and pulling Georgia back towards Russia, is scared of Saakashvili. After being sentenced while out of the country to six years for abuse of power, Saakashvili was first jailed when he returned to Georgia in 2021. Last week, he received nine years for misspending public funds from 2009 to 2012, when he was head of state. On Monday, he received another four years and six months 'for illegally crossing Georgia's border' when he covertly returned from exile in Ukraine, lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili told the AFP news agency. 'Taking into account the combination of sentences, Mikheil Saakashvili's overall prison term is set at 12 years and six months,' said Judge Mikheil Jinjolia. Saakashvili and opposition groups have denounced his ongoing prosecution as politically motivated. Following last week's sentencing, the former president took to social media to accuse the authorities of engineering the verdict to keep him from mounting a political challenge. 'It was clear from the very beginning that the case was purely political,' he wrote on X, accusing the country's de facto leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of Georgian Dream, of ordering his conviction. The United National Movement (UNM) party, previously led by Saakashvili, accused Georgian courts of 'carrying out the orders of the regime, which uses the judiciary to silence opponents'. Western concern A deeply polarising figure, Saakashvili rose to power on a tide of popular acclaim in the 2003 Rose Revolution. In office, he reoriented Georgia towards the West and embarked on an ambitious public sector reform programme that delivered rapid improvements in the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million. However, the latter part of his tenure was marked by police brutality and a disastrous 2008 war with Russia. Reacting to Monday's verdict, Saakashvili accused Georgia's 'pro-Russian regime' of 'cynically punishing' him for 'refusing to surrender Georgia' during Russia's 2008 aggression. The European Parliament, which has condemned Georgian Dream's crackdown on ongoing protests over claims of election meddling and policies perceived as a threat to democracy, has called for Saakashvili's immediate release. The European Union and the United States have urged Georgia to ensure that Saakashvili is provided with medical treatment and that his rights are protected. The Council of Europe rights watchdog has branded him a 'political prisoner', while Amnesty International has called his treatment an 'apparent political revenge'.
Saudi Gazette
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Saudi Gazette
Hunger-striking journalist challenges Georgia's government from jail
BATUMI — "I will not bow to this regime. I will not play by its rules," vowed journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, who has been on hunger strike in a Georgian jail for 25 founder of two news websites in Georgia, her health is declining and relatives fear for her life. She was taken to hospital this week for 49, has been in per-trial detention since she slapped a police chief during nightly protests that have galvanised Georgians since the end of accuse their government of rigging elections and turning their back on their country's future in the European increasingly authoritarian government says she committed a serious criminal offence, but her pre-trial detention has turned her into a symbol of resistance."Today it is me, tomorrow it could be anyone who dares to dream of a just, democratic European Georgia, untouched by Russian influence, unshaken by oppression," Amaglobeli wrote in a letter from Rustavi prison, not far from the Georgian capital EU's human rights commissioner says her pre-trial detention for assaulting a police officer is foreign embassies in Georgia have demanded Amaglobeli's immediate release and a review of her case, describing her detention as another worrying example of intimidation of journalists in Amaglobeli was detained twice on 11 January in highly contentious circumstances, during a protest against the Georgian Dream government in the Black Sea port of Batumi.A video promoted repeatedly on state media shows her lightly slapping the Batumi police chief on the Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has condemned her actions."Everyone must understand that the police officer is inviolable, the police officer represents the state and the strength of the state," Kobakhidze told a press found guilty of assault she faces between four and seven years in is one of many hundreds of protesters to have been arrested across Georgia. Opposition leaders are among those who have been detained and in some cases injured by gangs of pro-government of the journalist alongside calls for her release adorn the main protest sites in Tbilisi as well as her home city of family, friends and colleagues describe her as a peaceful, calm and hard-working person who founded Batumi news website Batumelebi with her business partner Eter Turadze in went on to launch national news website, Netgazeti, and today both sites are regarded as unbiased and trustworthy news sources in Georgia's deeply polarised third-floor offices look on to the snow-capped Ajara mountains. The Georgian flag hangs from the balcony alongside the flags of the EU and Ukraine."Mzia is well known in journalistic circles, but she was not a public person," says civil rights activist Malkaz Chkadua, who has taken part in the nightly protests in Batumi."She was only 25 years old, a young brave journalist when she started the newspaper Batumelebi which has been fighting for freedom of expression, and defending human rights through different government regimes in this country."Her niece Iveta, who grew up with Mzia, describes her as a the night she was arrested, she was still at her office and most of her staff had gone home for the and investigative journalist Irma Dimidtradze says her boss had not been taking part in the daily anti-government when Amaglobeli learned that a friend was among several protesters detained for putting up posters for an upcoming general strike, she rushed to the police station."People were chanting 'sticking up posters is not a crime', and to demonstrate that it is not a crime, Mzia did the same thing," says earlier, as the protests took hold, the Georgian Dream government banned face masks at protests and increased fines for making "inscriptions or drawings" on building was captured on video attaching a poster to the wall of a police station before she was led away by several officers."We learned later in the police report that she disobeyed a lawful order of the police that she was swearing and insulting them," said Irma Dimitradze, adding that all of it was was charged with an administrative offence and released. Her niece, Iveta, was with other relatives waiting for her: "When Mzia came out, I even joked with her saying: 'Look, if you wanted to rest, to have a day off, you did not need to do this.'"But soon the situation escalated, and more arrests was seen confronting Batumi police chief Irakli Dgeubadze. As he walked away, she grabbed him by his sleeve and slapped taken minutes afterwards shows her being led away by camera, she is taunted with highly threatening and abusive language which witnesses have said is the voice of the chief of lawyers say he later spat in her face and refused to give her water or access to toilets. She was also denied access to her lawyers for several prosecutors argued that her slap was motivated by "revenge". A judge rejected bail by her legal team and remanded her in pre-trial the dock, Amaglobeli looked defiant, wearing in a blue hoody and holding a copy of the book by Nobel Prize-winner Maria Ressa, "How to Stand Up to a Dictator: the fight for our future."Twenty days into her hunger strike on 31 January, Georgia's Special Penitentiary Service urged Amaglobeli to stop "in the best interests of her health".Leading Georgian Dream figure in parliament Mamuka Mdinaradze said it was wrong to portray her as "a person who has committed great heroism... she should start eating and everything would be over".Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, another leading light in the party, suggested Amaglobeli could come out and admit "I made a mistake, and I apologise", as the Batumi was a dignified police several groups have said it is the authorities who are in the wrong by detaining her in the first place. The Georgian Young Lawyers' Association says her prosecution is "politically motivated".Since the beginning of the pro-EU protests, hundreds of protesters have been detained, beaten and treated inhumanely, according to Transparency International than 90 journalists have been violently attacked and their equipment police officers have faced independent Special Investigations Service, which investigates allegations made against officials says it has launched an investigation into possible abuse of power in Amaghlobeli's case by "certain employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia".It says 10 police officers, including Batumi's police chief, have been questioned as witnesses. None have been suspended from is next due in court on 4 March. — BBC
