Concerns Over Eye Health of Jailed Journalist Mzia Amaglobeli

Lawyers of Mzia Amaghlobeli – the founder of Batumelebi and Netgazeti media outlets, who is currently in pre-trial detention on criminal charges of assaulting police — have raised concerns over the rapid deterioration of her eye health while in custody.

The defense raised the issue during a June 23 hearing at the Batumi City Court, which ended with Judge Nino Sakhelashvili’s decision to keep Amaghlobeli in pre-trial detention, despite concerns that she may be on the verge of losing her eyesight.

“According to the February 6 examination, vision in her right eye has already dropped to 10 percent and can only be improved to 40 percent with corrective glasses,” Amaghlobeli’s lawyer, Maia Mtsariashvili, told the court on June 23. “This is when, prior to her detention, according to her [health certificate], she had a chance to reach up to 90 percent [vision] with glasses.”

Mtsariashvili told TV Pirveli later, on June 26, that Amaghlobeli suffers from keratoconus — a progressive eye condition that can lead to gradual vision loss. According to her, the vision in Amaghlobeli’s left, weaker eye was as low as 0.04% percent per the latest examination in February.

Amaghlobeli was placed in pre-trial detention following the tense night of arrests on January 11–12 in Batumi. She was detained twice that night — first after placing a protest sticker on an outbuilding of the Batumi Police Department, and again shortly after her release, after slapping Batumi police chief Irakli Dgebuadze. She faces four to seven years in prison over the latter incident. Amaghlobeli launched a hunger strike following her arrest, which she ended on February 18, after 38 days.

“Nobody has known the condition of her eye or vision” since the February examination at Vivamedi, Mtsariashvili told TV Pirveli, referring to the Tbilisi hospital where Amaghlobeli was transferred during her hunger strike. “She has not undergone either further examination in this respect or received any treatment since then.”

The concerns come amid growing scrutiny of Amaghlobeli’s criminal trial, which many view as politically motivated. Her case is widely seen as part of a broader pattern in which severe charges of “assaulting police” are applied to relatively minor incidents that would not typically warrant criminal prosecution.

Activist Nino Datashvili and poet Zviad Ratiani, both detained in recent weeks, face similar charges for allegedly slapping a court bailiff or police officer. Earlier, 21-year-old protester Mate Devidze was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on comparable charges stemming from a November 19, 2024, incident, in which he was seen swinging a stick-like object at police officers pursuing him during an early-morning rally dispersal. The trials come as no police officer has been held accountable, despite dozens of documented cases of police violence during the first weeks of ongoing non-stop demonstrations.

On June 26, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), a local human rights group, announced that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had begun reviewing the appeal in Amaghlobeli’s case, roughly two months after GYLA submitted the application. The organization said the Court indicated the case may be classified as an “impact case,” one that could significantly influence or change human rights law.

In the appeal, GYLA argued that the state violated several of her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to liberty and security (Article 5), the right to a fair trial (Article 6), the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8), freedom of expression (Article 10), and and limitations on use of restrictions on rights (Article 18), alleging political motivations behind the case. According to Mtsariashvili, the appeal covers the period from the opening of the investigation through to Amaghlobeli’s pre-trial hearing.

Lawyers have challenged the legality of both Amaghlobeli’s detention and the custody as a pre-trial measure. 

Throughout her detention, Amaghlobeli has been fined twice on administrative charges, in what her lawyers argued were two fines on the same act of putting a sticker, and a result of a separate fabricated administrative case to justify her initial illegal detention on the sticker incident.

Also Read:

• 19/06/2025 – European Parliament Demands Journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli’s ‘Immediate’ and ‘Unconditional’ Release
• 18/03/2025 – Clooney Foundation to Monitor Mzia Amaghlobeli’s Trial
• 24/01/2025 – Press Freedom, Journalists, and Rights Organizations Demand Immediate Release of Amaghlobeli