Washington has imposed financial sanctions against security officials and the leaders of Alt Info for undermining and suppressing the freedom of peaceful assembly in Georgia. They have additionally imposed travel sanctions on 60 others, including senior government officials.
On Monday, the US Department of Treasury sanctioned the chief of the Interior Ministry’s Special Task Department, Zviad (Khareba) Kharazishvili, and his deputy Mileri Lagazauri.
They also sanctioned the extremist far-right group and TV channel Alt Info’s co-founders Konstantine Morgoshia and Zurab Makharadze.
They cited Kharazishvili and Lagazauri’s ‘brutal crackdowns’ on foreign agent law protesters and political opponents, and accused Morgoshia and Makharadze of being ‘responsible for or complicit in, or have directly or indirectly engaged in violently suppressing the exercise of the freedom of peaceful assembly’.
The Special Tasks Department is the security agency responsible for the riot police deployed to suppress the protests against the foreign agent law. During the protests, riot police physically assaulted and aggressively detained protesters, in addition to deploying pepper spray, tear gas, and water cannons to disperse the almost daily protests against the law.
Alt Info is a pro-Russian far-right group largely responsible for organising the July 2021 homophobic riots.
The sanctions will freeze the US properties and assets of those sanctioned and block organisations in which the sanctioned individuals have a 50% or more stake.
Bradley T. Smith, the acting undersecretary of the department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office, stated that the sanctions underscored US ‘concern about the consequences of anti-democratic actions in Georgia and efforts by key individuals to use violence and intimidation to achieve their aims’.
‘The United States remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to undermine the rights of the Georgian people’, Smith said.
‘The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behaviour’, the statement read.
Also on Monday evening, the US Department of State announced that it was imposing travel sanctions on more than 60 Georgian individuals and their family members ‘responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Georgia’.
These include unnamed senior government and municipal figures who ‘abused their power to restrict the fundamental freedoms of the Georgian people’, and business leaders ‘involved in corrupt practices, persons who have spread disinformation and promoted violent extremism, members of law enforcement who were involved in the beating of protesters, and members of parliament who played a critical role in advancing undemocratic legislation and restricting civil society.’
Kharazishvili, Lagazauri, Morgoshia, and Makharadze are the first Georgian nationals to be explicitly targeted by financial sanctions in relation to Georgian Dream’s controversial foreign agent law.
This tranche of visa restrictions was also the first to include government and municipal officials. The first set of travel sanctions were announced in June, with the US imposing visa restrictions on ‘dozens’ of Georgians, including members of the ruling party and law enforcement, as well as MPs and private citizens.
Less than an hour after the Department of Treasury’s announcement, Alt Info’s Makharadze wrote a post on Facebook stating that it was a ‘great honour’ for him to be sanctioned for the ‘prevention of the faggot parade in the centre of Tbilisi’.
‘For the suppression of the satanic orgy of the West in front of [the church of] Kashveti and my opposition to the West’s Maidan, the United States of America officially sanctioned me’, he said, adding that ‘there is no higher evaluation of my work and political struggle’.
