Court Sends Students to 12-Day Detention for Allegedly Insulting MP
On May 30, Tbilisi City Court sentenced two students, Lika Lortkipanidze and Tatia Apriamashvili, to 12 days in detention after Georgian Dream MP Mariam Lashkhi filed a complaint accusing them of publicly insulting her. The court also fined activist Magda Mamukashvili 4,000 GEL and refrained from detaining her, citing that she is a mother of a minor.
MP Lashkhi accused three female activists of insulting her in a May 17 incident in which they confronted her at a café where she was with her minor children. The activists shouted at the Georgian Dream MP, “Freedom for regime prisoners,” “No to the Russian regime!” “Down with Russian slaves,” and “No to Russian slaves.”
Lashkhi claimed she was insulted as a public official. The Interior Ministry backed her claim and sought a 45-day detention for Lortkipanidze and Apriamashvili for an alleged offense. In February, GD parliament amended the law to make insulting a public official an administrative offense.
The detention sparked the students’ fury that evening, prompting them to march in protest from Ilia State University to Parliament on May 30. “We won’t forget the oppression. We won’t forgive the terror,” they chanted on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue on the 184th consecutive day of anti-regime resistance.
The detained students reportedly study at Tbilisi’s Ilia State University. Their fellow students plan to boycott classes on Monday, June 2, to show solidarity, saying the detentions were unjust.
In a separate case on the same day, the court sentenced Tornike Skhvitaridze, brother of the detained protester Saba Skhvitaridze, to five days in detention for allegedly insulting a police officer. Another person involved in the case, Ani Kavtaradze, was fined 5,000 GEL.
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