Mass arrest of Georgian Dream Activists under One Charge – Disobedience to Police Officers

Interpresnews

Supporters and members of Georgian Dream are being arrested throughout Georgia. Georgian Dream states that the government is eager to add tension to the situation. Most experts also share this opinion and they do not exclude the possibility that the government’s purpose is to postpone the elections. First of all, they arrested human rights defenders Dachi Tsaguria and Beka Aladashvili on Saturday, September 22. They were charged for resistance to police officers. However, the concrete reason for their detention is not clear. Following their detention, activists and supporters of Georgian Dream were charged with  – “disobedience to police officers,” newspaper Rezonansi reported in its article “Mass arrest of Georgian Dream activists /All received the same charge: disobedience to police officers.”

Rezonansi’s article reviews several detention cases about which humanrights.ge has already written. “In parallel to these detentions, the spokesperson of the National Movement held a special briefing and blamed Georgian Dream activists and majoritarian candidate Luka Kurtanidze for violence and assaults on their [UNM] supporters. Chiora Taktakishvili said in one case Luka Kurtanidze physically assaulted a public servant, who is ethnically Azerbaijani, threatening him with expulsion from Georgia unless he changed his political views.

Taktakishvili stated that “in the days days before the elections, violence undermines not only the pre-election environment, but it also contradicts the state interests, particularly when Russian military units have started mobilization on the occupied territories over the past few days.”

Luka Kurtanidze denies the accusations of the National Movement and states that he has never threatened citizens; he just advised them to refrain from intimidating Georgian Dream supporters and doing unpleasant things,” the article’s author wrote.

Georgian Dream saidthat the government, in detaining these people, is seeking to take the election process out of the normal, legal framework. “The government is trying to provoke disorder in order to push the election process beyond the normal framework. Three days ago we were informed by reliable sources that the government is planning to start detaining Georgian Dream’s members and supporters, as well as GD’s representatives in the District Election Commissions and observers a week before election day; on some occasions our supporters have been persecuted under criminal law as well, as was the case in Kaspi district,” Sozar Subari of the Georgian Dream said at the special briefing. He stated that their main purpose is to put supporters in prisons for 10-15 days in order to remove them from the election process,” the article reads.

“Of course the government chooses violence but the problem is that there is no guarantee that the government will take some steps which will be useful at least for them. They will go to any lengths just to defeat the rival and very often they don't see what is useful for them and what is not. Is it not true that detentions cannot calm the situation? So I do not think people are being arrested to subdue controversy. To tell the truth, I am afraid the government’s intention is to aggravate the public outrage, caused by the video-footage about prisoners’ abuse, by new series wave of detentions that finally might create a spiral which cannot be easily stopped. In this case, the government will have the chance to use riot police against the outraged people and on the other hand they will have chance to postpone the election. In this situation, the government is not eager to hold elections because they will not get the desired result; however, nobody can predict what will happen in a month or six months,” political scientist Ramaz Sakvarelidze told the Rezonansi’s journalist.