The Daily Beat: 5 May
Chair of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee from the ruling Georgian Dream party, Nikoloz Samkharadze, said the Georgian Dream may pull out of the European socialists’ political family (PES) in response to the PES’s condemnation of prime minister Garibashvili’s participation in ultra-conservative CPAC gathering. Samkharadze said it is incomprehensible PES would condemn the Georgian prime minister’s participation in CPAC. “I am not sure whether to stay or not in such a group when your own political group forbids you from participating in the conference,” Nikoloz Samkharadze said. PES said earlier it will decide in June if the Georgian Dream belongs in its ranks.
Another senior MP from the ruling party, head of the Legal Affairs Committee Mikhail Sarjveladze, shielded Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze from laudatory comments voiced by Russian war propagandist Margarita Simonyan. “Don’t draw direct parallels, but if Hitler liked Beethoven, is it Beethoven’s fault?” Mikheil Sarjveladze said. Simonyan reacted to Kaladze’s latest comment on not joining EU sanctions against Russia, publicly praising the wisdom and practicability of Georgian authorities.
Kristine Takalandze, a Georgian woman charged with spying in occupied Abkhazia, was sentenced to 10.5 years behind bars. Takalandze comes from the village of Nabakevi in the ethnic Georgian majority district of Gali. The State Security Service told Civil.ge that it activated the hotline to inform the EU Monitoring Mission and will do its utmost to secure the prompt release of Georgian citizens.
The police in occupied Abkhazia detained young activists from the “Hara H-Pitsunda” (Our Pitsunda) movement for protesting the Russian land grab. Local police in occupied Abkhazia’s central city, Sokhumi, detained six women and two men in their twenties for “petty hooliganism” after they hung protest banners in several public places, opposing the transfer of the state “dacha” property “Pitsunda” to the Russian Federation. They also protest against the construction of apartment hotels and multi-story buildings in the historic districts of Sokhumi. According to local press reports, the women activists were released after an “explanatory conversation” with police, while the two men were charged with administrative offenses.
