A prominent French documentary photographer has been denied entry to Georgia, with security officials reportedly attempting to illegally confiscate her phone before deporting her.
Marylise Vigneau, who often visited Georgia for various projects, this time was travelling to Georgia from Austria on Wednesday for a vacation with her husband.
After allowing her husband to pass, Vigneau was detained by border guards at Kutaisi Airport in western Georgia and told she would not be allowed to enter. Border officials did not give an explanation for the decision.
She told OC Media that the border guard stamped her passport initially but did not give it back.
‘After about fifteen minutes, another officer appeared. He had my French passport in his hand and asked me to follow him into a small office’, she said, adding that the officer asked her questions about her husband and the purpose of the visit. She was left in the room for several hours before she was denied entry.
When she asked why she had been denied entry, the officer told her ‘they didn’t know’. The official documents handed to her said that she was denied entry due to ‘other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation’ — a justification used by border authorities to deny foreigners, including those critical of the Georgian government, entry.
Following her rejection, she booked a flight to Poland for 22:00 that night, but said that border guards demanded that she hand over her phone and threatening that it would ‘get worse’ for her if she refused.
After speaking with a lawyer, she managed to keep her phone.
‘But they kept all my other luggage, including my computer, in a small locked room’, she said.
Nika Simonashvili, a lawyer and former chair of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, said security officials had no legal basis to confiscate Vigneau’s phone.
‘We do not recall such a practical case because even a person transferred to a special space should have the opportunity to communicate with the outside world, including to consult with a lawyer, which in this case the Interior Ministry was actually trying to restrict’, Simonishivli told OC Media.
‘They are still acting arbitrarily here and therefore completely illegally and unjustifiably tried to restrict the freedoms of a foreign journalist’.
OC Media has reached out to Georgia’s State Security Service for comment.
‘I believe I was on one of their infamous lists’, Vigneau said, adding that she visited Georgia after the 2024 parliamentary elections and in December, after the ongoing wave of anti-government protests began.
‘My photographic work from those visits was published in The Eye of Photography and Hot Mirror, exhibited at the Kolga Photo Festival in Tbilisi, and shortlisted in several international competitions. I also regularly posted on social media, openly expressing my support for the Georgian people’s struggle for freedom and democracy. I didn’t hide where I stood — and I doubt the authorities missed it’, she told OC Media.
Vigneau plans to appeal the authorities’ decision to bar her from entering Georgia.
Vigneau was the latest Western journalist to have been refused entry to Georgia, as the Georgian Dream-led government continues to crackdown on media, activists, and opposition politicians.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
