Second Georgian opposition leader arrested within one week

The Tbilisi City Court has ordered Nika Melia, a leader of the Ahali party, into police custody after failing to appear before the Georgian Dream parliamentary commission and refusing to pay the bail imposed on him for his absence. Melia splashed water toward the judge during his court hearing.

Melia had declared that he would not pay the bail, and that he was widely expected to be arrested.

However, before the court could formally order his detention, Melia — whose deadline to pay bail was set for Friday at midnight — was unexpectedly arrested by police on Thursday night in Tbilisi as he was on his way to record a podcast episode.

According to an official statement from Ahali, Melia and his security detail were traveling in two cars when they were stopped by a police vehicle. The officers first approached the vehicle following Melia’s car, where the security team was seated, and informed them they were being fined for the tinted windows.

According to Nika Gvaramia, another leader of Ahali, after dealing with the security vehicle, the officers then approached Melia’s own car. Upon recognising the politician, an officer radioed, ‘the object is here’, and within moments, dozens of police officers appeared at the scene and detained Melia.

‘There were about 100 people, all dressed in black. In reality, this was an operation by the Central Criminal Police Department’, Gvaramia remarked.

That same evening, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that Melia had been administratively detained on charges of insulting a police officer.

The next day, Melia’s court hearing was held regarding his refusal to pay bail. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Irakli Shvangiradze ordered his pre-trial detention.

Earlier, during the proceedings, Melia was expelled from the courtroom after splashing water at the judge. This occurred after he demanded that the court address what he described as his ‘abduction’ by a group of police officers the night before.

‘You are part of a criminal chain, unwilling even to ask how I ended up here, who abducted me, and why’, Melia said to Shvangiradze before reaching out from the defendant’s box and splashing water from a bottle at the judge.

Melia is now the third person to be remanded into custody after failing to appear before the parliamentary commission established by the ruling party and refusing to pay the bail imposed on him afterwards. Previously, the same had happened to former Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili and Zurab Japaridze, the leader of the Girchi — More Freedom party.

The commission to investigate the United National Movement’s (UNM) time in power was established in February, following repeated pledges by Georgian Dream to punish the former ruling party. Initially, its mandate was limited to the UNM’s years in government (2003–2012), but it was later expanded to cover the period up to the present day — effectively allowing the ruling party to target virtually any opposition figure.

Like numerous other opposition figures, Japaridze, Okruashvili, and Melia boycotted the commission, refusing to recognise its legitimacy, as well as that of the current parliament, which has also been boycotted by major opposition parties following the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections.

The article of the criminal code under which the cases were launched against those who ignored the commission stipulates penalties including a fine or up to one year in prison, along with a ban on holding public office or engaging in certain activities for up to three years.

Melia’s detention was criticised both within Georgia and internationally by opponents of the Georgian government. The Resistance Platform, created by the country’s fifth president Salome Zourabichvili and involving several opposition parties, stated that the detention represents ‘a manifestation of fear by the Russian regime’.

‘Following Nika Melia’s abduction, it has become even clearer [...] that under [Bidzina] Ivanishvili’s Russian regime, it is impossible to create a fair and peaceful environment, or a political climate even remotely resembling normalcy in Georgia’, the statement read.

Representative Joe Wilson, one of the most vocal critics of the Georgian Dream government in the US Congress, once again called the ruling party ‘anti-American’, stating that Melia was arrested ‘on the same false pretense as the previous attack on opposition’.

‘It is clear that the total banning of opposition is underway so as to sell the country to China. Sanctions are the solution!’ he said.

Another foreign Georgian Dream critic, MEP Rasa Juknevičienė, while commenting on the politician’s arrest, stated that ‘the situation in Georgia is getting worse. [The] EU and Member states must act!’

Georgian Dream has openly declared that it intends to use the findings of the parliamentary commission to file a case with the Constitutional Court seeking to ban the country’s main opposition parties.

The ruling party maintained that all major opposition groups operating in the country are satellites of the UNM and should no longer be allowed to exist.

Georgian opposition leader Japaridze arrested after boycotting anti-UNM commission

Zurab Japaridze is the second person arrested over the anti-UNM commision boycott.

OC MediaMikheil Gvadzabia