GEORGIA: Political Arrests & more – 26th June 2025

Gamarjobat from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Georgia Update from the 26th of June twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Georgia.

The Georgia Dream or the Kotsebi is pushing hard to tighten control and shift toward a fully authoritarian state. Instead of stopping political arrests, they sped up the process.

Many political figures were charged and sentenced for refusing to appear before the parliament’s temporary investigative committee. Nika Gvaramia, leader of the Coalition for Change or Tsvlilebebistvis, got arrested on Friday, the 13th.

Two other leaders of the same coalition – Nika Melia and Zura Japaridze – are already in prison for the same reason. All three first ignored a summons from the Georgian Dream’s, or the Kotsebi’s, parliamentary investigative committee, and then refused to pay their bails.

On Monday, the 23rd, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze, co-founders of the Strong Georgia Coalition or Lelo-Dzlieri, were sentenced to eight months in prison and got a two-year ban from public office. They skipped their hearing and were arrested at their party office.

Also on Monday, the same judge sentenced the already detained Zurab Japaridze, the leader of Coalition for Change or Tsvlilebebistvis, to seven months and got the same ban. Just a day later, Gogi Vashadze, linked to the United National Movement or Natsebi, was arrested and got the same sentence.

On that note about political prisoners, on Thursday, 19th, the European Parliament passed a resolution about media freedom in Georgia, supporting the release of Mzia Amaglobeli—founder and director of Batumelebi and Netgazeti, two independent news outlets—and other political prisoners.

The resolution says that Kotsebi's repressive laws were passed to silence all critical voices. It says that independent media is nearly wiped out, with government-linked media outlets spreading Russian-style propaganda and anti-European misinformation.

In Mzia Amaglobeli’s case, the resolution highlighted that authorities ignored legal procedures by placing her in pretrial detention without solid grounds—a move even Georgia’s Public Defender’s office criticized.

Next up, on Friday, the 20th, NGO Transparency International Georgia (or TI) called out Razhden Kuprashvili, the head of the anti-corruption bureau, for hiding Bidzina Ivanishvili’s asset declaration. Ivanishvili, founder of the Kotsebi, had to submit this declaration by the end of twenty twenty-four when he was briefly a formal member of parliament.

TI pointed out that the document isn’t on the official declarations website, and the bureau refused to provide it after public information requests. In contrast, the declaration of former PM Irakli Garibashvili, who was also briefly a parliament member, is available online. TI suggested Ivanishvili might have skipped submitting it altogether.

According to the website, Ivanishvili’s last submitted declaration dates back to twenty thirteen, just one year into his rule.

In a rare move against corruption, the Kotsebi arrested one of their own. On Thursday, the 20th, authorities detained Romeo Mikautadze, Georgia’s former deputy economy minister, for abusing power and laundering money. He held top government posts from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty-four.

In twenty twenty-one, he used his influence to sell a company he co-founded for 12 million lari - around 4.4 million dollars - and took a personal cut of 1.1 million lari (about 400,000 dollars). To hide the source of this income, he orchestrated an elaborate scheme to pretend he got the money from selling property.

Investigators also found two luxury cars worth 840,000 lari (around 310,000 dollars) registered under his trusted associates. In total, he is accused of laundering over 2.6 million lari (almost one million dollars).

If convicted, he can be sentenced up to twelve years in prison.

In February, the Kotsebi parliament passed a law that punishes insulting public officials with fines up to 4,000 Lari—almost 1,500 dollars—or jail time up to forty-five days. Authorities have started enforcing this law against journalists, activists, and public figures who insulted the Kotsebi on Facebook.

TV hosts Vika Bukia, Nanuka Zhorzholiani, and Vakho Sanaia got summoned to court for calling the Kotsebi MP Mariam Lashkhi a slave—the most common insult people use against the ruling party.

In another case, Mamuka Mdinaradze, one of the Kotsebi leaders, reported several Facebook posts that criticized him. One of them came from journalist Dea Mamiseishvili, who called him a bastard and a disgrace. The court fined her 3,000 Lari, which is just over 1,000 dollars. In total, eighteen people were summoned to court for insulting the Kotsebi political leaders.

On Wednesday, 18th, the Kotsebi Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told reporters that the government won’t invite observers of the OSCE/ODIHR for municipal elections in October, saying that the observer missions are only relevant during national elections. He said inviting them for municipal elections isn’t a usual practice and only happens as an exception. He thinks that bringing them now would put an unnecessary burden on them, and that the elections will run smoothly…so basically….don’t worry, since we the ruling party completely controls elections, we’ll take care of it all.

In business news, to stop illegal labor migration, the ruling party wants to tighten the labor migration law. The new bill introduces a work permit system for foreigners, fines both migrants and employers without permits, and sets clearer rules for employment monitoring. The Kotsebi says that too many unqualified or extra workers hurt local jobs and the labor market.

Even though 240,000 foreigners stayed in Georgia for over six months between twenty twenty-two and twenty twenty-three, only about 42,000 registered as labor migrants. The government wants better control and plans to give jobs to locals first, where possible. The law kicks in on 1st of March, twenty twenty-six. Employers or migrants without permits will face a 2,000 Lari fine per violation, which is over 700 dollars, with doubled penalties for repeat offenses.

The purpose of this law is to give the Kotsebi better ability to harass foreigners in Georgia who post things on Facebook they don’t like or otherwise promote an independent Georgia.

Georgian online media outlet Publika carried out an investigation into the background of Gela Geladze, who was recently appointed as Minister of Internal Affairs. They found that in twenty thirteen, his father, Davit Geladze, then a senior police official, shot an eighteen-year-old boy, Gigi Svani, during a street altercation in Tbilisi. Geladze fired a gun, hit the teenager in the shoulder, and fled the scene. At the time, he headed a unit in the criminal police.

Back in twenty thirteen, prosecutors charged him with causing serious bodily harm, a crime punishable by three to five years in prison, and requested pretrial detention. However, the court released him after three days and set bail at 15,000 lari (around 5,400 dollars), saying that the offense was less serious and there were procedural violations during his arrest.

On Wednesday, the 25th, Ivanishvili’s parliament passed a law in its first reading that heavily restricts freedom of speech. Eighty-five MPs supported it. No one voted against it.

Now, if someone sues you for defamation, you must prove that everything you said about them was factually correct. This applies to both public officials and private citizens. If you can’t prove it, the court can punish you — even if you thought the information was true.

The court will give you ten days to settle the case. The law also removes protections that once allowed people to speak out without restrictions if their goal was to inform the public, correct a mistake, or respond to criticism.

An alleged case of police brutality might’ve caused a person’s death. Alan Kakhitashvili, a city sanitation worker, got into a fight outside a restaurant on Friday, the 6th, and injured another person with a knife. Police picked up Kakhitashvili and his friend Irakli Tatunashvili—who was also involved in the fight—and took them to the Gldani-Nadzaladevi station for questioning. A few hours later, he ended up in the hospital unconscious and died two days later.

Tatunashvili said he heard Alan’s desperate screams from inside the station. He also said police beat him during questioning too—punched, kicked, and even jumped on him while he was down. He believes the same actions against his friend were the cause of his death.

On Wednesday, the 25th, someone shot a man on the street in Batumi near the London Hotel. The shooting happened during the daytime, and the victim was hospitalized with a shoulder wound. Police closed off the street and started an investigation, but no arrests have been made so far.

In other news, Tina Khidasheli, the former defense minister, said the Kotsebi completely cut their last remaining link to the US and EU by removing Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili on Tuesday, the 24th. She said he was the only government official who still had real contact with Western partners.

Khidasheli said Davitashvili’s task was to fix relations with the US, but during his recent visit to Washington, he failed to arrange high-level meetings or ease tensions. Right after his trip, the US House passed the anti-kotsebi MEGOBARI Act and things only got worse.

Changing topics, on Sunday, the 22nd, a driver rammed into a group of demonstrators who were protesting on the street near the Presidential palace. Witnesses said the driver circled around them multiple times and targeted people wherever they moved, ignoring police commands and hitting officers too. The attack injured several protesters — Mariam Mekantsishvili broke a rib and lost consciousness twice, while Liza Ubilava suffered a concussion.

The police arrested one person.

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In a recent episode of the podcast Club Random with Bill Maher, actor and director Sean Penn talked about Vladimir Putin’s goals. Penn said Putin had pressured Ukraine to accept a puppet government before invading, aiming to keep control without direct conflict. Penn talked about Georgia, saying that Russia uses similar tactics there — applying pressure to install friendly leaders and maintain influence over the country’s politics. He urged people to look at what’s happening in Georgia now and compare it with the patterns Russia used in Ukraine.

Speaking of Russia and Georgia, last week Argentina uncovered a Russian spy network spreading Kremlin-backed disinformation and influencing public opinion. The network included Georgian-born Lev Andriashvili and his wife Irina Yakovenko, both residents of Argentina. They ran a group called La Companía, which targeted social media, local NGOs, and gathered political intelligence to serve Russian interests.

Intelligence sources say the network had strong ties to the Russian government and the Kremlin’s Lakhta project, a known troll factory which the US Treasury accused of trying to interfere in elections across the US and Europe, and that Oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, led.

On Wednesday, the 17th, the Ministry of Internal Affairs held a briefing where officials said police found nearly 300 kilograms of heroin hidden in plastic containers, which were made to look like fireproof bricks. The shipment came from Armenia and was headed for Europe through Batumi, a city on Georgia’s western coast. Its estimated black market value is around 85 million lari—over 31 million dollars.

Police uncovered the drugs during a routine truck inspection at the customs zone. They detained one Georgian citizen and are now working to track down others involved. The crime carries a sentence of twenty years to life.

Early results from Georgia’s twenty twenty-four national census show the county’s population at 3,900,000. Women make up 53% - almost 2.1 million and men 47% - just over 1.8 million.

A third of the entire population lives in Tbilisi. Most populated regions are Imereti with almost 13%, and Kvemo Kartli with just a bit over 11%.

Outside of Tbilisi, Adjara has the highest share of urban residents — about two-thirds — mostly because of Batumi, the second most populated city in the country. The regions with the fewest people living in cities are Mtskheta-Mtianeti, Kakheti, and Racha-Lechkhumi-Kvemo Svaneti, each with only about one in five residents in urban areas.

The census covered all of Georgia except the occupied territories and included non-citizens. Final results will come out in June twenty twenty-six.

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

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Nakhvamdis!