After 48 days, Temur Katamadze ended his hunger strike today, March 5. This followed his transfer from the detention center to the medical facility early this morning amid reports of his seriously deteriorating health. He has not yet commented on his decision, but his struggle does not seem to be over.
Temur Katamadze (Gaffar Yilmaz), 57, a Turkish citizen of Georgian origin, has been living in Georgia since 2012. Katamadze became known to the wider public as the “flagbearer” of Batumi protests as he always carried a Georgian flag and led the peaceful pro-EU protest movement in the country’s coastal city until his arrest in mid-January. Until today, Katamadze has been protesting in this extreme form of hunger strike against the ruling government, which has repeatedly refused to grant him Georgian citizenship and has threatened to deport him to Turkey, where his safety is at risk.
Arrests, Abuse, and Fight for Refugee Status
Temur Katamadze was first arrested on January 11, 2025 in Batumi on administrative charges of “disobeying a lawful police order.” He was sent to administrative detention for five days.
Katamadze reported police mistreatment during this arrest. He said in a letter that the Batumi police chief, Irakli Dgebuadze, and ten other policemen beat him in the detention facility. In the same letter, he also recalled that the police verbally abused him, calling him a “dog” and a “Turk” in a derogatory manner and telling him to “get out of the country,” threatening him with deportation.
He was released on January 16, only to be arrested again the same day. This time the authorities cited Georgian immigration law, saying that Katamadze had no right to live in Georgia and should be expelled from the country. He was sent to the temporary detention facility of the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for three months. The day after his second arrest, on January 17, Katamadze began a hunger strike.
Faced with forced deportation from Georgia, Katamadze appealed to the MIA on January 20, requesting refugee status on humanitarian grounds. But the Ministry denied his application in just three days, when by law, even with fast-track review, a response should have taken at least a month, according to the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), a human rights watchdog that defends his interests. The denial came without explanation.
After the MIA’s denial, Temur Katamadze appealed the decision in the Tbilisi City Court. As long as the final decision on granting him refugee status is pending, his deportation is off the agenda, GYLA says.
Katamadze is seeking refugee status “because he is the subject of an arrest warrant in Turkey and has a well-founded fear of persecution if expelled from Georgia,” the watchdog adds.
Allegedly, in 2023, Katamadze was informed that if he entered Turkey he would be arrested for allegedly supporting the now deceased Fethullah Gulen (an opponent declared an enemy by the Turkish government) and that his life could easily be in danger. Katamadze says the story was fabricated, a claim confirmed by his lawyer.
As Temur Katamadze continued his hunger strike, there were multiple public calls urging him to stop. “Instead of a victim, this country needs live warriors to survive,” Salome Zurabishvili wrote. However, Katamadze refused to end his hunger strike up until now.
Now his refugee status is crucial because it prevents him from being forcibly deported to Turkey. But for years, Katamadze has been fighting for Georgian citizenship.
Struggle for Georgian Citizenship
“My name is Temur Katamadze, one of the leaders, representatives and activists of ethnic Georgians in Turkey. For 40 years I have been working to preserve the Georgian identity, language and culture in Turkey and to pass it on to future generations,” Temur Katamadze wrote in his social media post on January 30.
He has tried three times (2012, 2015, and 2019) to obtain Georgian citizenship, but to no avail. In 2020, he was denied an extension of his residence permit. Katamadze, who speaks fluent Georgian, knows the country’s history and culture, and has worked for years to preserve and promote it among ethnic Georgians in Turkey, believes the repeated denials of Georgian citizenship have a political basis.
“For 13 years I have been living in the country without leaving it, continuing the struggle against the Georgian Dream and the Ivanishvili regime, which deliberately denies Georgian citizenship to ethnic Georgians from Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan based on discriminatory policies,” Katamadze wrote in his post.
He also writes that in 2016, together with ethnic Georgians from Iran and Turkey, he founded the World Georgian Union “Phoenix” in Batumi “with the aim of preserving the national identity, mother tongue and Georgian culture of ethnic Georgians living in Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan and passing it on to future generations.”
In all the three mentioned cases, Katamadze went through the necessary procedures and successfully passed exams in Georgian language and history. RFE/RL’s Georgian Service has seen the 2019 document from the Public Service Development Agency, which cites the counterintelligence department of the State Security Service as saying it “did not consider the granting of Georgian citizenship feasible by way of exception.”
With the way of exception, a person can obtain Georgian citizenship if he/she considers Georgia as his/her homeland.
Born in 1968, Temur Katamadze is a descendant of the Muhajirs – residents of Georgia’s Adjara region who were expelled to what is now Turkey in the 1870s after Russia invaded Adjara.
Since the late 1990s, he has worked from Turkey and then from Georgia to support the education and information rights of ethnic Georgians in Turkey, to help ethnic Georgians obtain citizenship, and to promote cultural ties between the two countries.
“During my 13 years in Georgia, I have become the victim of Ivanishvili’s regime several times,” Temur Katamadze says in his letter.
“My first illegal detention in Batumi, and then another detention with the purpose of my expulsion from the country, was the political order of the Georgian Dream to take revenge for my years of struggle for citizenship and my oppositional views,” he adds.
For weeks, authorities withheld necessary health information about the hunger-striking prisoner from the GYLA. At one point, Temur Katamadze was denied hospitalization and subsequently refused medical examinations in detention. In a letter, he said he had been “pressured” in detention to end his protest. He has lost 20 kilograms due to the hunger strike.
According to GYLA, the Tbilisi City Court will consider granting Temur Katamadze refugee status on March 18.
Also Read:
- Liveblog: Resistance 2025 Vol. 2 | Temur Katamadze Ends Hunger Strike
- Liveblog: Resistance 2025 Vol. 1
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)