On February 1, seven organizations broke away from the Council of Ethnic Minorities, a consultative platform that has for years voiced the needs and advocated for the rights of minority communities in Georgia. Citing a “deadlock” in the Council’s work, they founded the Council for Ethnic Diversity.
The split came after months of internal conflict amid allegations of government attempts to seize control over the body. While sharing a common purpose, the two councils are likely to paint sharply contrasting perspectives on the concerns of ethnic minorities in a diverse nation from now on.
The Council of Ethnic Minorities was originally nested under the Tolerance Center of the Public Defender’s Office. Since 2005, it has brought together numerous organizations focused on non-dominant ethnic groups in Georgia and provided a forum to discuss issues facing these communities. Through the Public Defender’s good offices, it could also advocate with the executive for ethnic minority rights, promote their civic integration, and improve their quality of life.
Folding under ruling party pressure?
But over the past year, the Council has become “dysfunctional,” according to a joint letter from those who left. “The crisis in the country has had a direct impact on the work of the Council, which is either not fulfilling or unable to fulfill its responsibilities. No working meetings have been held for the past ten months, despite numerous requests from several Council members,” they said.
The letter accused the Council’s coordinators of “persecuting critical and dissenting views,” sidelining them from meetings with state officials, and steering the Council’s work in ways that allegedly align with the ruling party’s agenda.
The Council organizations used to consult executive officials regularly, especially the office of the State Minister for Reconciliation and Civil Equality of Georgia. In these meetings, they raised the problems of their communities and pressed the authorities to address them.
But over time, the Council representatives chose only those who would “applaud” the government, tells Samira Ismailova, one of those who left the council. Bairamova represented Civil Integration Platform, an organization focused on Azerbaijani and Armenian minority-populated regions of Samtkhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli of Georgia.
Instead of facing criticism for broken promises to build new kindergartens for minority communities in the regions, for example, Ismailova says, state authorities preferred to receive thanks for carrying out less significant projects, such as book translations. “For every government in Georgia, ethnic minorities have been seen as its apologists and applauders,” she adds with bitterness.
The dissenters allege that the Council was filled with GONGOs—government-controlled NGOs—to subdue criticism and ensure smooth communication with the ruling party. This was made easier since the Council had no entry requirements or checks: GONGOs could only exist on paper and did not have to demonstrate a link with the communities or prove to have active projects. They claim that “active organizations” have been gradually excluded from Council activities.
When asked about the ruling party’s motivations for avoiding meetings with critics from the Council, Giorgi Tumasyan, chairman of the Armenian Community Platform of Georgia and one of those who left, argued that the ruling party aimed to “create a false agenda” to overshadow the real issues facing ethnic minorities in Georgia. He further suggested that by engaging with GONGOs, the government seeks to “gain legitimacy” among ethnic minorities.
The coordinators—Koba Chopliani and Izabela Osipova—were supposed to play only an organizational role in the Council, but critics say they represent the ruling party’s interests. Their job “was not in any way to influence the work of the Council,” says Aleksandre Kavtaradze of Georgian Udis, yet, he argues, that is precisely what Chopliani and Osipova did, to the benefit of the ruling party.
“They [the coordinators] invited the organizations [to official meetings] selectively,” Kavtaradze adds. By preventing them from meeting with a minister and raising their community’s issues, the coordinators aimed to “sterilize the Council and make it subservient to the government,” he says.
“It’s a lie…These stories are made up,” Koba Chopliani, the coordinator of the Council, told us. “No one has ever been expelled from the Council because of their criticism,” he adds, “nor because of their political tastes.”
He admitted that the cases of removal of “some members” of the Council had indeed occurred, but for other reasons: “There are some elementary norms of politeness and ethics… The actions of some members have gone beyond [these norms].” “Cooperation with these people was impossible,” he scoffs. Yet, indirectly confirming the conflict has at least something to do with political disagreements, Chopliani further accused those individuals of trying to use the Council as their “political podium,” adding, “These unpleasant processes started from that time.”
Foreign Agents’ Law – a stumbling block
Indeed, the seeds of conflict had been sown for years. Giorgi Tumasyan had raised concerns as early as 2023 about so-called “black lists” sent by the ministry to the Council’s coordinators, indicating which members to invite to meetings and which not to.
According to him, the ruling party decisively tightened its grip on the Council about the same time the Foreign Agents Law was reintroduced in 2024. A heated debate surrounding the law only “exposed” the problems within the Council, Tumasyan argues.
In April 2024, thirteen members of the Council issued a joint statement criticizing the Foreign Agents law and urging the authorities not to pass it. The Council’s coordinator, Koba Chopliani, responded angrily, saying they did not speak on behalf of the 55 organizations in the Council and that the statement was not “legitimate.” Ismailova retorted that this was nonsense, as the Council has no specific rule on how many of its members are qualified to make statements.
The problems within the Council have only intensified since then, as its coordinator has shown support for the highly controversial Foreign Agents law, which could soon require some members of the Council to register as foreign agents and face fines.
In the meantime, the political situation in Georgia deteriorated further. Contested elections and the ruling party’s halting of the EU accession process led to protests and heavy-handed repression. For the past ten months, the Council has not held any working sessions.
Critics’ Alleged Exclusion from Meetings
On January 23, a score of the Council members met with the Public Defender, Levan Ioseliani. The next day a very restricted group led by the coordinators met with Tea Akhvlediani, the GD minister of Reconciliation and Civic Integration. Most members were excluded.
The official readout says “The state minister thanked the representatives of the Council of Ethnic Minorities of the Public Defender for the close and fruitful cooperation and emphasized their role in the process of Strategy [Civic Equality and Integration Strategy for 2021-2030] implementation and monitoring, which serves the effective policy-making,” adding, “For their part, the heads of the Council of ethnic minorities expressed their willingness to submit their recommendations for the draft action plan [Strategy Action Plan for 2025-2026] to the ministry”.
With the GD government facing an acute crisis of domestic and international legitimacy, the meeting helped the government appear formally representative of ethnic minorities. Critical voices in the Council tell us they were neither informed nor invited to the meeting. In a few days, they decided to leave the Council.
Those we spoke to are not sure whether the Council would disintegrate. “There is some potential [for more members to leave], but it is limited,” says Tumasyan. Ismailova adds that organizations other than the so-called GONGO are still “not losing hope” of fighting from within the Council.
They say their departure does not mean entering the competition but reflects a difference in vision and values. “We are not creating an alternative [to the Council]. We have a concrete view on integration, support, development of ethnic minorities and creation of equal politics, and we want to work in this direction,” Ismailova tells us of the Council for Ethnic Diversity, which the breakaway organizations established.
Given GD’s slide into authoritarianism, the founders of the new platform have little hope of solving their communities’ problems. Their goal, Tumasyan says, is “at least to voice the problems” facing minorities.
Public Defender Ioseliani avoided taking responsibility for the Council’s split, stating that it was not a structural body of his office, although the Council has consulted public defenders since 2005. Ioseliani merely expressed his support for “continued cooperation” with all organizations working for ethnic minorities in Georgia.
In a country with two Presidents, a contested government and Parliament, polarized media, and clashing realities, ethnic minorities seem to be another area where society is presented with two contrasting images.