Victor Shenderovich, a prominent anti-Putin Russian writer, activist, and Israeli citizen said he has filed a lawsuit against the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs over the denial to enter Georgia earlier in June.
“A month and a half ago, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia did not let me in the country without explaining reasons, disrupting my two performances, in Tbilisi and Batumi. I decided to give the respectable Georgian state a chance to correct this mistake - and filed a lawsuit,” Mr Shenderovich wrote on Facebook.
Maria Arkhipova, Shenderovich's lawyer, states the lawsuit was filed to the Tbilisi City Court on July 17.
Earlier in June Mr Shenderovich, who is declared a foreign agent by Russia, was sent back to Israel from the Tbilisi International Airport.
Victor Shenderovich is not the first Russian opposition figure to be deported from the Georgian border. Georgia has faced intense criticism over increasing number of deportations of Russian anti-Putin activists as well as political or media personalities.
In its report on the Legal Status of Foreigners and Racism in Georgia, Tolerance and Diversity Institute, a Tbilisi-based rights group said that "in 2022, dozens of Russian journalists, human rights defenders and politicians critical of the Kremlin were refused permission to cross the border," also arguing that some Ukrainian public figures seeking to enter Georgia face obstacles on the border.”
Aleksandra Shvedchenko, an independent broadcaster Dozhd TV reporter who had been living in Georgia for over a year, was denied entry in March.
Since the beginning of 2023, prominent Russian women’s rights activist and first-ever Russian woman to be featured on the cover of the Time magazine Anna Rigina, writer and journalist Filipp Dzyadko, TV Rain journalist and presenter Mikhail Fishman, lawyers Maxim Olenichev, Ivan Safronov; Dmitry Katchev and many others have been rejected at the Georgian border.
The list also includes Russian opposition leader and deputy to Aleksey Navalny Lubov Sobol who accused the Georgian Government of being subservient to the Kremlin and personally Vladimir Putin.
Other opposition figures to have been deported from the Georgian border include Dmitry Gudkov, journalists Ilya Azar, Alexei Ponomarev, and Pussy Riot member Olga Borisova.
The long list contrasts sharply with the pro-Putin or even Kremlin-linked individuals who have been coming to Georgia freely for various purposes.
Earlier in June, a convoy of uniform black luxury SUVs allegedly belonging to Kadirov-linked Chechen businessman, Aslanbek Akhmetkhanov and the former mayor of Grozny, was spotted all across Georgia.
In May, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov’s daughter Ekaterina Vinokurova was seen with family members holidaying at Kvareli Lake resort hotel, in eastern Georgia.
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