31 May 2024
Georgian Dream MP Dito Samkharadze appears to have admitted to being behind a campaign of vandalism on the offices of various media, civil society organisations, and opposition parties.
In a post on his Facebook profile on Friday evening, Samkharadze said that public pressure on ruling party MPs had been ‘answered’.
‘The low-quality bullying initiated by the neo-fascists, the stateless agents, was answered yesterday! I won't tolerate the slightest [insult] or forgive you; bully each other!’, he wrote.
Samkharadze included a list of 22 media, political and civil society organisations and a 10-minute video depicting masked people vandalising their offices.
On Friday morning, the organisations named by Samkharadze reported that their offices had been vandalised overnight. Gela Mtivlishvili, the founder of media outlet Mtis Ambebi, published photos of their office with insults spray painted across it and notes saying ‘traitor’. Others targeted included Studio Monitori, an investigative journalist team, queer rights group Tbilisi Pride, opposition parties European Georgia, Girchi, Lelo.
‘What you intend [to do] against us, we will retaliate a thousand times worse, painfully and masterfully!’, Samkharadze added. ‘We will treat you so that you won't even want to see each other, let alone be in public and charge towards [our homes]!’
A day prior, Samkharadze published a photo of graffiti near his own home saying ‘Slave Samkharadze’, and vowed to answer it in a ‘more bitter way, on a larger scale, and in better quality’.
Samkharadze’s flat was among those of several Georgian MPs to be targetted after the party passed the foreign agent law earlier this week.
The vandalism of the offices and homes of government critics, however, goes back to early May, as protests against the foreign agent law were gaining momentum.
This was also accompanied by widespread reports among government critics and individual protesters of threatening anonymous phone calls. On Friday, there were reports that the calls had restarted. MP Tina Bokuchava from the opposition United National Movement (UNM) said she had received such a call at midnight, along with several of her acquaintances.
The harassment has also been accompanied by several brutal attacks on government critics and opposition figures outside their homes by masked men.
In his post on Friday, Samkharadze, who has previously been accused by the opposition of being behind the attacks, appeared to threaten more.
‘You are very frivolous, we know the identities of every single one of you, if you do something bad to any member of the Georgian Dream, your masters won’t be able to save you!’, he said.
‘By the way, no need to watch your back, we're not sneaking up on anyone, look ahead, and you better watch yourself!’
