Tbilisi City Court judge ruled today to jail Nika Gvaramia, opposition Mtavari TV CEO for 3.5 years for “abuse of power” over decisions he took as CEO of Rustavi2, another opposition TV station taken over by a pro-Georgian Dream management in 2019.
Judge Lasha Chkhikvadze said Gvaramia’s actions in Rustavi 2 constituted “abuse of power” under Article 220 of the Georgian Criminal Code, inflicting substantial damages to Rustavi2. The Prosecutor General’s office claimed Gvaramia’s managerial decisions “abused power and did not act honestly, with legal interests of the television.”
Gvaramia’s arrest is set to further fuel concerns over Georgia’s backsliding under Georgian Dream. The decision comes at a particularly sensitive time ahead of a decision to whether grant Georgia an EU candidate status in Brussels.
Georgia’s Public Defender Nino Lomjaria has said Gvaramia’s managerial decisions could in no case be subjected to any criminal liability and that charges brought against Gvaramia by the state prosecution do not contain sufficient basis for criminal proceedings.
Leading Georgian CSOs, including Transparency International – Georgia have said the proceedings against Gvaramia were politically-motivated.
“[the decision] aims to punish Nika Gvaramia and disrupt the activities of a critical media outlet. The use of the justice system for media censorship and intimidation sends a clear message to other critical media outlets as well. This verdict is a continuation of the political persecution that has been waged against Government’s opponents for years,” Transparency International – Georgia said in a statement calling the decision a “political order.”
“Recent criminal cases launched against the founders or family members of critical media outlets, the failure to prosecute the organizers of the July 5, 2021 violence, the increasing number of cases of physical retaliation against journalists, and other ineffective investigations have shown that critical media activities have become dangerous,” the statement added.
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