The situation of imprisoned Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, who has been on a hunger strike for three weeks, “demands urgent action,” said the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty.
“This is not just a matter of freedom and imprisonment – this is a matter of life and death. And I very much hope that the [Georgian] authorities will act with the necessary speed in this extremely difficult situation,” O'Flaherty said in a commentary for Radio Liberty.
Amaglobeli, 49, is the founder of the independent media sites Batumelebi and Netgazeti.
She was arrested on January 12 of this year during mass anti-government protests in the city of Batumi. The journalist is accused of assaulting a police officer, for which she faces up to seven years in prison.
Amaglobeli has begun a hunger strike in protest. Her lawyer, Dzhuba Sikharulidze, told the AP that the woman is getting weaker every day, barely covering the short distance from her cell to the room where she usually meets with her lawyer. Georgian and Western human rights activists say her life is in danger.
Arrest of journalist
A video published in Georgian media shows journalist Amaglobeli slapping the Batumi police chief during a protest. Witnesses and her lawyers say that the police had previously physically and verbally abused her, and that the slap was her response to that.
The journalist's lawyer, Juba Sikharulidze, told the AP that the abuse continued during her detention, with the police chief “spitting in Mzia's face and denying her access to drinking water and the toilet.”
Mzia Amaglobeli is being held in a prison in the city of Rustavi, near the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Authorities are investigating the allegations, her lawyer said.
The Georgian Interior Ministry did not respond to an AP request for comment.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said authorities would investigate any excessive use of force, but in Amaglobeli's case, the actions were “in front of the cameras.”
“This crime is absolutely obvious,” the prime minister said.
Impact on journalists
Nestan Tsetskhladze, editor of the Georgian publication Netgazeti, said the founder's arrest had a devastating impact on journalists.
“If they treat the founder of the most famous independent media, the director and media manager, free from any political influence and influential groups, like this, then they can treat others the same or even worse,” Tsetskhladze told the AP.
Mzia Amaglobeli is one of more than 40 people arrested on criminal charges following a series of anti-government demonstrations that have swept Georgia in recent months.
The international human rights organization “Reporters Without Borders” has called on the EU to take decisive action and launch an international investigation into violence against journalists in Georgia.
According to human rights activists, more than 70 journalists have been attacked during the government protests – some of them multiple times – and half of them were injured.
“The attacks include beatings, water cannons, tear gas, arrests, insults, obstruction of their work and damage to equipment. Georgian police harassed reporters covering the protests,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
“Absurd” case against actor Chichinadze
Another well-known Georgian who was imprisoned for participating in the protests is 28-year-old theater and film actor Andro Chichinadze, who actively participated in the protests.
After the protests in November, police searched his home and arrested him on December 5. Chichinadze was charged with “participation in group violence,” which carries a prison sentence of up to nine years.
The actor's lawyers say prosecutors have video footage of Chichinadze brandishing a stick and throwing a bottle that the lawyers say was thrown at him by police.
Chichinadze denies the charges. His lawyers say there is no evidence that he hit anyone, and no one claims to have been a victim of the violence he is accused of.
At a court hearing on the preventive measure, the Georgian actor compared himself to “a Kafka character who is on trial and cannot understand what is happening to him.”
His mother Lika Guntsadze in an interview with the AP, she called the case against her son “simply absurd.”
Incitement charges revolutionii
The political crisis in Georgia began after the parliamentary elections, which were won by the ruling Georgian Dream party. However, its opponents claim that the vote was rigged.
The election results have pushed Georgia further into Russia's sphere of influence. Official Tbilisi has suspended EU accession talks, while the pro-government Georgian Dream party has passed a series of laws similar to Russian ones that restrict the work of human rights groups and the media, and severely restrict the rights of the LGBT community.
These laws, condemned by the European Union and the United States, have sparked mass protests in the country. Law enforcement and security services used force to suppress public discontent.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze defended his government's actions, accusing protesters of seeking to “harm the state” and attempting to stage a revolution similar to the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014, when President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted.
Many of those detained by police reported being physically and verbally abused by police or while in custody. guard.
Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, told the Associated Press that the use of violent methods during peaceful demonstrations points to an “aggressive campaign” against protesters in Georgia.
“All of this points to an aggressive campaign to suppress these demonstrations, the vast majority of which have reportedly been peaceful,” — she said.
Plans to toughen penalties
“Georgian Dream” announced plans on February 3 to introduce harsher penalties for both criminal and administrative offenses that protesters could be charged with. There is talk of increasing prison terms, fines and prison terms.
Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia, told the AP that she believes the government is “using Russian and Belarusian methods” to attack government opponents.
“There is nothing new in the way they attack civil society activists,” she said. “This happened in Russia many years ago.”
Lika Guntsadze, mother of arrested actor Andro Chichinadze, expressed a similar view opinion: “We chose Europe, and we were taken to Russia.”