▲Pridon Bubuteishvili at the court hearing. Photo: RFE/RL.
The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced 20-year-old Pridon Bubuteishvili to five years in prison on charges of attacking a firefighter and damaging parliament’s gates during May’s foreign agent law protests. The court has also approved the pleas of two other protesters.
The court sentenced Bubuteishvili on Monday.
He was arrested on 9 May on charges of injuring a firefighter and damaging parliament’s gates by throwing stones at them on 1 May, during the zenith of the protests against the controversial foreign agent law.
For weeks as parliament discussed the foreign agent law, tens of thousands took to the streets of Georgia to protest against the draft legislation. Ten protesters were detained during that wave of protests.
The law, adopted on 16 May, labels any civil any civil society or media organisation that receives at least 20% of its funding from abroad ‘organisations carrying out the interests of a foreign power’. Such organisations are subject to monitoring every six months, which lawyers have warned could include forcing them to hand over internal communications and confidential sources. Organisations that do not comply are subject to large fines.
The Prosecutor’s Office has reportedly refused to sign a plea deal for Bubuteishvili, while agreeing to sign deals with two others detained during the protests — Omar Okribelashvili, 19, and Saba Meparishvili, 23.
Both Okribelashvili and Meparishvili were detained on charges of damaging barricades set up at parliament’s main entrance on 16 May. Both protesters admitted to causing damage to the barricade, but denied acting as a group.
Omar Okribelashvili and Saba Meparishvili. Photo: Mindia Gabadze.
Prosecutor Nugzar Chitadze told journalists that the two youths had ‘confessed to the crime they committed and repented, which became the basis for the state to grant them leniency’.
Chitadze said that under the terms of the plea agreement, Okribelashvili and Meparishvili were sentenced to three years in prison, of which one year was considered a suspended sentence, while a year and a half of their sentences were to be served in prison.
RFE/RL has reported that their three-year sentence was reduced to two and a half years with September’s amnesty. Having been in detention since May, the two foreign agent law protesters are expected to be released in 10 months’ time.
Publikareported, the Democracy Research Institute (DRI) which defended their rights has compensated the damage ₾400 ($140) caused to the barricade.
A protester attempts to break through barricades blocking parliament’s entrance. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Meparishvili’s lawyer, Davit Gamkrelidze, stated that they intend to appeal to Georgia’s disputed president, Mikheil Kavelashvili, to pardon both Meparishvili and Okribelashvili.
On Sunday, Kavelashvili announced that he had pardoned more than 600 convicts on the occasion of Epiphany. Kavelashvili’s statement did not specify the types of crimes committed by those pardoned.
Georgian Dream’s political council has approved party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili’s recommendation to keep Irakli Kobakhidze as prime minister.
The political council convened on Thursday to nominate Georgian Dream members for the several posts.
The official results of 26 October’s elections gave the ruling Georgian Dream party a large majority, with 54% of the vote. However, local media and observer groups have documented widespread vote rigging by the ruling party.
The party’s executiv
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has registered a case against the foreign agent law adopted amidst mass protests in Georgia, according to the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA).
The controversial foreign agent law has been sent to the ECHR for review on behalf 136 civil organisations in Georgia, including GYLA, as well as four private Georgian citizens.
On Wednesday, GYLA cited six separate articles of the European Convention on Human Rights that the law allegedly violat
France, Germany, and Poland, known as the Weimar Triangle, have expressed their concern regarding voting irregularities in Georgia’s elections, noting that they cannot support the start of EU accession negotiations unless Georgian Dream’s controversial foreign agent and anti-queer laws are repealed.
On Thursday, Weimar Triangle leaders French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk issued a joint statement on Georgia’s post-election situ
Two days before the parliamentary elections, Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri has announced the purchase of several new water cannons for the riot police.
Gomelauri’s announcement came on Thursday at the opening ceremony of the new Special Tasks Department base in Krtsanisi, a suburb of Tbilisi. The department is responsible for the riot police deployed in protests in Georgia.
‘We bought new equipment […] We bought water cannons, machines bought by the previous government in 200
