On Friday, Tbilisi City Court sentenced two activists to administrative detention, following a complaint filed by Georgian Dream MP Mariam Lashkhi, who said they had verbally insulted her. Another activist involved in the incident was fined.
The administrative case concerned the confrontation at a cafe in central Tbilisi on 17 May, where activists Tatia Apriamashvili, Lika Lortkipanidze, and Magda Mamukashvili heckled Lashkhi with slogans such as ‘Freedom to political prisoners’ and ‘Down with Russia’s slaves’.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs had requested detention for Apriamashvili and Lortkipanidze, and a fine for Mamukashvili.
The court on Friday ordered that Apriamishvili and Lortkipanidze be handed 12 days of administrative detention, while Mamukashvili was fined ₾4,000 ($1,500).
The activists were charged under one of the many laws passed by Georgian Dream amidst the ongoing anti-government protests, which introduced insulting officeholders as an administrative offence. The article provides for both a fine of up to ₾4,000 or administrative arrest for up to 45 days.
Both individuals detained in the case are students; Apriamashvili, 20, studies at the Georgian National University, while Lortkipanidze, 19, studies at Ilia State University (ISU). Following the court’s decision, ISU students briefly blocked the road near their campus in Tbilisi’s Vake district in protest. Later, they organised a march to the parliament with a banner reading ‘Freedom for the students’.
In a letter sent from detention, Lortkipanidze said that she and her fellow activists would not be intimidated. Apriamashvili also sent a letter from prison, in which she thanked her supporters for their solidarity.
After the 17 May confrontation, Lashkhi said that the action during which the women chanted toward her ‘should be met with an appropriate response’, emphasising that she was accompanied by her young children at the time.
In response, Apriamashvili accused Lashkhi of ‘manipulation with children’ and recalled government actions against several activists, including Mariam Bajelidze, whose home was searched by police in the presence of her young child.
‘Whenever I encounter any [Georgian Dream representative], people who made our youth miserable […] beat us and broke our facial bones, we will always let those people know that they are slaves of Russia’, she said.
This is not the only case involving the implementation of the newly adopted law. Earlier, on 23 May, the Zugdidi court fined two local activists, Mariam Sichinava and Keren Esebua, for insulting another ruling party MP, Irakli Zarkua, during an altercation near one of the city’s hotels.
In that case, Sichinava was fined ₾4,000 ($1,500), while Esebua was fined ₾3,500 ($1,300).
Mikheil Gvadzabia
