GYLA says Batumi police chief insulted Batumelebi director following arrest

(Updated: about 10 hours ago)• 3 min read

According to the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), following the arrest of Batumelebi and Netgazeti’s director Mzia Amaghlobeli, Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze tried to physically restrain her several times and spat in her face.

GYLA announced on Wednesday that Amaghlobeli had been visited by GYLA chair Nona Kurdovanidze at Rustavi Prison. The association noted that Kurdovanidze also attended the Special Investigative Service’s questioning of the police in regards to the allegations of Amaghlobeli’s ill-treatment.

‘Mzia Amaghlobeli provided detailed information to the Special Investigation Service about the episodes of ill-treatment she suffered in the police station yard and the station building’, GYLA’s statement read.

‘After her arrest, Irakli Dgebuadze verbally abused her and later tried to physically assault her several times at the police station, however, other police officers were able to restrain Irakli Dgebuadze and remove him from the room’.

‘Irakli Dgebuadze entered the room several times and continued to aggressively treat her; during one of these entrances, he spat in Mzia Amaghlobeli’s face. Also, in accordance with his orders, Mzia Amaghlobeli was not allowed to drink water or use the bathroom for a certain period of time’, GYLA reported.

GYLA called on the Special Investigation Service to promptly investigate the humiliating treatment of Amaghlobeli and called for Dgebuadze’s immediate suspension.

The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics also joined this demand.

Amaghlobeli was first arrested on 11 January for hanging a poster at a pro-European rally in Batumi, but was later released that same day.

Minutes after her release, she was arrested again, this time on charges of slapping Dgebuadze, which the prosecutor’s office considered an ‘attack on a police officer’ — a criminal offence which carries a prison sentence of four to seven years.

Following her second detention, a short video was widely circulated by pro-government media outlets and social media personalities that showed Amaghlobeli arguing with Dgebuadze before she slapped him in the face.

Despite the footage showing Amaghlobeli slapping Dgebuadze, many independent media outlets and civil society activists have accused pro-government media of purposefully obfuscating how the police treated Amaghlobeli and the protesters gathered at the scene.

On Tuesday, the Batumi City Court left Amaghlobeli in pre-trial detention. The next hearing is scheduled for 4 March. However, according to RFE/RL, Amaghlobeli appealed the decision on Wednesday.

Amaghlobeli’s arrest has sparked widespread criticism of law enforcement, the government, and the court system, with multiple human rights organisations saying that Amaghlobeli’s arrest and subsequent long stint of pretrial detention were political decisions.

On Wednesday, the International Press Institute (IPI) called for the release of ‘veteran Georgian journalist and IPI member Mzia Amaghlobeli’.

The following day, Georgia’s Public Defender’s office stated that they had submitted an amicus curiae opinion to the Court of Appeals in the Amaghlobeli case, stating that such an intensive restriction of a person’s freedom based solely on abstract and potential threats was unacceptable.

‘The prosecutor did not properly justify why it was not appropriate to use another, less severe measure of restraint, especially since, according to the appeal, the defense expressed its readiness to pay a fairly large amount of bail, as well as to impose additional obligations’, the statement read.

On 13 January, Batumelebi’s camera operator Guram Murvanidze was detained during another protest in Batumi while he was filming police arresting demonstrators. He was charged with disobeying the police.

According to a statement from Batumelebi and its sister organisation Netgazeti, Murvanidze told his lawyer that police aggression towards him intensified after he identified himself as a member of Batumelebi’s team. His lawyer claimed that Dgebuadze personally instructed the police to detain Murvanidze.

On Tuesday, Murvanidze was sentenced to eight days of administrative detention.Reporters Without Borders then posted on X on Thursday, detailing Manvelidze’s arrest and calling on Georgia’s Interior Ministry ‘to stop this repression of the media and to immediately release the journalists’.