Georgian authorities have barred Aliq Media founder Arsen Kharatyan from entering the country, reportedly detaining him for hours at Tbilisi International Airport before deporting him.

Aliq Media reported that their founder was detained at Tbilisi Airport on Tuesday morning, and that he was denied access to his phone.

Kharatyan later stated that he had arrived in Tbilisi from an undisclosed European country, reportedly Luxembourg, on Monday. He said that he was detained by the border guards at the airport for four hours before being deported to the country he had arrived from, despite having a flight to Yerevan booked for 18 September.

‘By now I have no doubt that this entry denial aka deportation is political, which ultimately means that current Georgian authorities are either afraid of people like me or have patrons from Moscow or Baku telling them to “clear up the space” before the elections’, Kharatyan said.

Georgian media reported that Kharatyan made these statements while in Istanbul.  

Kharatyan was also briefly barred from entering Georgia from Armenia last week, stating that he was similarly detained at the airport for two hours and given a document stating that he was barred from entering due to ‘other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation’.

Georgian border officials regularly use this as a justification for not allowing people, including Russian journalists and activists critical of the government in Moscow, into the country.

‘I now have a document with a denial of the entry and a stamp in my passport which let me enter Georgia, so not sure what’s more legal,’ Kharatyan wrote at the time.

Kharatyan was one of the founders of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party, having previously served as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s foreign relations adviser. He has also been a part of pro-democracy movements in Armenia, as well as a member of various international media organisations.

‘The biggest problem here is the fact that no one has explained to me the reason why I was denied entry to Georgia, where I lived for over [five] years, created a media, co-founded various organisations, helped build bridges between Armenia–Georgia and so on,’ Kharatyan wrote, adding that Georgia was his ‘second homeland’.

Kharatyan also said that six weeks ahead of the parliamentary elections the ruling Georgian dream party ‘seems not to care about gaining new friends, but is making new enemies with actions like this’. 

He expressed confidence that he would return to Georgia ‘very soon’ and that no power in the world ‘can make Georgia a country like Belarus,’ noting that Georgians are ‘simply too mature and strong as a civil society’.

‘Thus this can only be a short authoritarian notion “a Belarus vacation” as one great American friend had put it but never a reality to stay!!!’

While it remains unclear why the authorities barred Kharatyan from entering the country, Georgian TV channel Formula cited unconfirmed reports that Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, ‘had information that the journalist was going to launch a TV station in Georgia’. 

His deportation was met with criticism inside Georgia, with Ana Dolidze, one of the leaders of the opposition Strong Georgia coalition, stating that what had happened to Kharatyan was a continuation of ‘Russia’s strategy’.

‘If there is a person who has free thoughts, supports the West, supports democracy in Georgia and fights for it, [Georgian Dream] prevents their entry. This is Russia’s strategy’, Dolidze said.

On Monday, Georgia barred Belarusian journalist Andrei Mialeshka from entering the country, despite him having lived there for the last few years. Mialeshka flew to Kutaisi in western Georgia with his daughter from Warsaw on Monday night and was sent back to Poland almost 24 hours later.

In February, Olesya Vartanyan, a former employee of the Crisis Group, reported mistreatment she experienced by Georgian revenue officers when crossing the Armenia-Georgia land border.

OC Media has reached out to Georgia’s Interior Ministry for comment on Kharatyan’s deportation.