Georgian police have detained another opposition politician, his party said Thursday — the second arrest in just over a week of government critics opposing policies seen as aligning the country more closely with Russia.
The Coalition for Change, Georgia’s largest opposition group, said one of its leaders, Nika Melia, had been detained. News reports said he was being held on charges of abusive behaviour towards a law enforcement officer and would be appearing in court.
Authoritarian, Pro-Russia?
Previously, one of the most pro-Western and democratic of the Soviet Union’s successor states, Georgia, under the leadership of the Georgian Dream party, is accused by its opponents of moving in an authoritarian and pro-Russian direction.
Last week, a Georgian court on Thursday placed Zurab Japaridze, another leader of the Coalition for Change, in pre-trial detention for an indeterminate period of time.
Japaridze had refused to appear at a parliamentary inquiry into alleged crimes committed under jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili, between 2004 and 2012.
Halting EU Integration
Georgian Dream, after winning an election last November denounced as rigged by the opposition, said it would halt talks on joining the European Union until 2028. Membership of the 27-nation bloc is a popular goal among Georgians and incorporated in the constitution.
Georgian Dream dismisses allegations that the November poll was falsified. The outcome triggered large-scale protests, with protesters confronting police and water cannon in the capital.
Georgian Dream says it still wants to eventually join the EU, but also wants balanced relations with Russia, which ruled Georgia for around 200 years until 1991.
Ex-Aide Arrested
Meanwhile, Georgian authorities said on Tuesday that they had arrested an ex-aide to Georgia’s most powerful man who fled the country earlier this year while on trial on charges of embezzling cryptocurrency worth more than $800 million from his former boss.
Giorgi Bachiashvili, who says the charges were politically motivated, was sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison for defrauding Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire former prime minister who is widely seen as Georgia’s de facto leader.
(With inputs from Reuters)
