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Opposition Leader, TI-Georgia Executive Assaulted in Batumi

Giorgi Gakharia, leader of the For Georgia party and former Prime Minister under the Georgian Dream (GD) government, and Zviad Koridze, a journalist and a member of the TI-Georgia were physically assaulted on the night of January 15, at the same venue – the Sheraton Hotel in Batumi, although in two separate incidents.

GD MP Dimitri Samkharadze and Adjara’s Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Giorgi Manvelidze, and allegedly several other GD MPs, were involved in an assault on the opposition leader, according to journalist Gela Mtivlishvili, who first reported the incident. Giorgi Gakharia was hospitalized with a broken nose and concussion.

Police arrived at the scene hours later, and since eyewitnesses reported the hotel staff clean the area, Gakharia’s colleagues expressed fear that the evidence may have been tampered with (or destroyed) from the scene.

The For Georgia party issued a statement calling an incident a “coordinated group assault orchestrated by Ivanishvili’s regime in Batumi.” The party believes the attack was “politically motivated.” One of the party’s leaders, Natia Mezvrishivili, personally blamed Bidzina Ivanishvili in an attack, recalling Ivanishvili’s earlier warnings of reprisals against the former GD strongman who left the party in 2021 and formed his own, in the opposition.

The attack on Gakharia was preceded by the verbal and physical assault on Zviad Koridze, a journalist and head of the regional office of Transparency International (TI)- Georgia, in the same venue and by the same people. Koridze was also hospitalized, reportedly with an eye injury.

TI-Georgia said an attack on its member was “a deliberate act of violence and retaliation by Ivanishvili’s party against the Georgian civil sector and the representative of Transparency International Georgia,” and demanded an investigation. The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics condemned the incident and it also called on the MIA to immediately investigate and bring those responsible to justice “to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Ministry of Interior told Civil.ge that an investigation under the Art. 126 of the Criminal Code (violence which caused physical pain, but has not resulted in deliberate physical injury) has been opened in Gakharia’s case, but it’s not yet known whether an investigation has been opened in Koridze’s case.

Public Defender Levan Ioseliani condemned the attacks on Giorgi Gakharia and Zviad Koridze and called on the authorities to investigate immediately.

Michael Roth, German Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, who is currently visiting Georgia, reacted to the attack in a social media post, calling for an investigation into the crime and punishment of the perpetrators. “The regime must protect critical voices and not threaten them,” Roth wrote.

The German ambassador to Georgia, Peter Fischer, also wrote about the attack, saying it’s a “sad day in Georgia, adding that “political repression and violence are on the rise” and that this is “pushing Georgia further and further away from the EU.”

President Salome Zurabishvili also condemned the attack on the opposition politician in a briefing, calling it “absolutely unbelievable” and “unacceptable”. She said Georgia had “entered a new phase” of repression and lashed out at the GD, saying it is “obviously using all the means characteristic of Putin’s Russian regime” to stifle critical voices.

The attack on the opposition politician and an independent journalist comes amid a wave of arrests of peaceful protesters and journalists, across the country in recent days, with the coastal city of Batumi at the forefront. Yesterday, the Batumi City Court remanded in custody Mzia Amaghlobeli, founder and director of the local publication Batumelebi, who faces a prison sentence for allegedly assaulting police. Zviad Koridze traveled to Batumi in connection with the developments surrounding Amaghlobeli, while Gakharia arrived for the court proceedings involving members of his party arrested in previous days.

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This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)

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