Imprisoned Georgian journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli fined for putting sticker on wall before arrest
Batumi City Court has fined Mzia Amaghlobeli, founder of Batumelebi and Netgazeti, ₾1,000 ($370) for putting up a sticker on a wall in Batumi prior to her arrest.
Amaghlobeli was found guilty of violating article 150 of the criminal code — ‘distorting the image of the city’ — on Wednesday. This was the second time she was fined over the incident, having previously been fined ₾2,000 ($740) for insulting a police officer.
Amaghlobeli was first detained at night on 11 January after putting a sticker calling for a nationwide strike on a fence outside a police station in Batumi. She had done so in protest against the detention of her colleague, Tsiala Katamidze, for putting up the same sticker on the street.
During her detention, Irakli Dgebuadze, the head of the Batumi police, said she had been detained for distorting the image of the city, though she was instead charged with insulting a police officer.
Shortly after being released, she was again arrested after slapping Dgebuadze during a heated exchange outside the police station. If found guilty, she could face seven years in prison for ‘assaulting a police officer’.
Critics have pointed out inconsistencies in the prosecution’s statements over both of these cases; in the first case, video evidence shows Amaghlobeli being detained by the head of the Adjara Police Department, Grigol Beselia, but the prosecution claimed that she was detained by another police officer, Goga Vachnadze. Beselia was never questioned in her case. Dgebuadze, who is heard in the video saying Amaghlobeli was detained for distorting the image of the city, was also never questioned.
Nona Kurdovanidze, a lawyer and the head of Georgian Young Lawyers Association, also noted that during the first trial that police did not have the right to arrest a citizen for putting up a sticker on the wall.
Beselia was questioned in Amaghlobeli’s second court process on 9 June, during which he said that a protocol had been written for Amaghlobeli for violating article 150. However, the protocol did not exist by the time Beselia gave his testimony, and was only registered two days later.
‘It is unfair that I am being tried a second time for putting up a sticker... Putting up a sticker was an expression of solidarity and protest towards the protest participants who were arrested because of the sticker’, Amaglobeli said during the same trial.
‘I don’t consider myself an offender of the law, because putting up a sticker is not a crime’, she added.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
