GEORGIA: Celebration of Iranian Revolution & more – 19th Feb 2026

Gamarjobat from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Georgia Update from the 19th of February twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what's going down in Georgia.

On Thursday, the 12th, the Tbilisi TV Tower glowed in Iran’s colors to mark the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. High-ranking Georgian officials attended an embassy reception at a hotel linked to Bidzina Ivanishvili. This drew sharp criticism from the Israeli Embassy, which questioned why Tbilisi honored a regime currently killing thousands of its own protesters.

At the hotel, unidentified individuals removed an Iranian activist who was there to protest and forced a Publika journalist to delete footage of the event.

While the City Hall calls the lighting of the TV Tower a standard diplomatic practice, local activists accuse the government of standing with a murderous regime

Next up. On Friday, the 13th, Givi Mikanadze, the Education Minister, announced a new quota system that effectively destroys Ilia State University. Under a new one city, one faculty rule, the government will force state universities to narrow their profiles, so there won’t be an overlap between the subjects they teach. This hits Ilia State hardest, reducing its student intake by ninety-two percent next year, from over 3,800 students to just 300.

The decree strips the university of its popular law, business, and social science programs, leaving it with almost nothing but teaching and engineering. Ilia State University has always been known as a center of liberal ideology, which frequently clashed with the ruling party’s right-wing agenda.

Speaking of universities, on Tuesday, the 17th, news broke that Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Kutaisi International University is launching bachelor’s degrees in astrolinguistics and astroarchaeology. These programs center on gematria, a pseudoscientific numerological practice and state that the Georgian language contains ancient astronomical codes later mirrored in Egyptian pyramids.

By granting the school special legal exemptions, the government allowed these degrees to bypass standard scientific review. Critics say that while the state is gutting educational standards in the country, it is simultaneously accommodating Ivanishvili’s personal obsessions with nationalistic pseudoscience.

On Monday, the 16th, the Georgian Dream or the Kotsebi party passed a bill that criminalizes the non-recognition of state institutions. This means that if a citizen systematically and publicly calls for mass disobedience or tries to establish alternative government bodies, they face up to three years in prison.

The ruling party says that this measure prevents groups from creating a false perception of government illegitimacy and only targets organized, repeat offenders.

In other news. On Thursday, the 12th, Nika Gvaramia, a leader of the Coalition for Change, was released from prison after serving an eight-month sentence. Supporters and family gathered outside the Rustavi penitentiary to welcome him.

The court originally jailed Gvaramia for refusing to appear before a parliamentary commission led by the ruling party. Once out of jail, Gvaramia pledged to fight for the release of other political prisoners, including opposition figures and former officials still behind bars. He says that the current government denies these individuals a fair trial.

Gvaramia called for opposition parties to coordinate their actions to move Georgia toward EU membership, stating that the country requires a unified platform to achieve a free and democratic future.

More about the release of detainees, as on Tuesday, the 17th, Gogi Gakharia’s party, For Georgia, or Sakartvelostvis, the only opposition party operating in parliament, announced plans to submit an amnesty bill to Parliament to release protesters detained over the last year. Party representative Shalva Kereselidze stated that the project targets peaceful citizens arrested or fined during mass pro-European demonstrations between November twenty twenty-four and September twenty twenty-five.

Kereselidze says that pardoning these students and activists would show a genuine commitment to national stability rather than using judicial punishment as a political tool.

Changing topics, on Friday, the 13th, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze released a video address on social media promising to clear Georgia of all illegal migrants within a few years. He stated that over 20,000 people currently live in the country illegally.

To address this, the government is strengthening the Migration Department, which already deported more people last year than in the previous decade combined.

Kobakhidze also shared that foreign students, who are mostly from India, contribute about 450 million dollars to the economy annually but leave immediately after graduation. He said that legal migrants make up only seven percent of the population and announced that new laws starting on the 1st of March will strictly limit foreign labor to protect Georgia’s national and religious identity.

On Monday, the 16th, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs blocked Russian activists from holding a public memorial for Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader. Organizers planned the gathering at Pushkin Square to mark the second anniversary of his death in a Russian prison. Even though the group promised to keep roads clear, police refused to allow the outdoor event.

While the memorial had to be moved to a private space, the Ministry of Internal Affairs declined to explain why they stopped the public gathering from taking place as originally intended.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the 17th, an explosion targeted the car of Zviad Jincharadze, a local criminal figure known as Jumata, in Ozurgeti, western Georgia. The blast occurred near the Bermukha restaurant just as Jincharadze entered his vehicle. He survived the explosion with only minor injuries.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs opened an investigation, suspecting attempted premeditated murder. Even though the investigation is in its early stages, it was likely a murder attempt by other members of the criminal underworld.

In economic news, on Friday, the 13th, the National Bank of Georgia announced it gained access to China’s Interbank Bond Market to diversify the country’s international reserves. This agreement allows Georgia’s central bank to trade and hold Chinese bonds through the People’s Bank of China.

The National Bank says this move improves investment opportunities and risk management, while critics point to Russia’s similar shift toward the yuan after Western sanctions. However, central bank sources stated the yuan holdings will remain small. The majority of reserves will stay in dollars and euros alongside the bank’s existing gold holdings.

Also on Friday, the 13th, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that Georgia will ban the registration of cars older than six years on the 1st of April. Deputy Minister Nino Tandilashvili stated that light vehicles imported for personal use must now also meet Euro 5 emissions standards.

While the new rule exempts electric cars, it has sparked a major backlash from the automotive sector. Car importers and business owners argue the rule is arbitrary and will price the middle class out of the market. They warn that the policy ignores the high cost of newer vehicles and the current lack of charging infrastructure for the exempt electric alternatives.

Finishing off this episode, in an article for Geopolitics titled Transnational Repression as a Growing Threat to Democracy and Human Rights, Vano Chkhikvadze talks about how fleeing the country from a repressive regime is no longer a guarantee of safety. Autocratic regimes now reach across borders to silence critics through digital spying, kidnappings, or by abusing Interpol.

The author explains that as the Georgian government passes more and more restrictive laws, its critics often choose to flee the country. However, the ruling party is now adopting tactics from regimes like Russia to harass dissidents in exile.

An example of this occurred in twenty twenty-five, when authorities captured Gogi Bachiashvili, Ivanishvili’s former aide, in the United Arab Emirates and flew him back to Tbilisi. His lawyers described this as a state-sponsored kidnapping because it bypassed all normal legal and court procedures.

Link to the full article in English in the show notes.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Nakhvamdis!