Hunger-striking journalist challenges Georgia’s government from jail

“I will not bow to this regime. I will not play by its rules,” vowed journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, who has been on hunger strike in a Georgian jail for 25 days.

The founder of two news websites in Georgia, her health is declining and relatives fear for her life. She was taken to hospital this week for treatment.

Amaglobeli, 49, has been in per-trial detention since she slapped a police chief during nightly protests that have galvanised Georgians since the end of November.

They accuse their government of rigging elections and turning their back on their country’s future in the European Union.

Georgia’s increasingly authoritarian government says she committed a serious criminal offence, but her pre-trial detention has turned her into a symbol of resistance.

“Today it is me, tomorrow it could be anyone who dares to dream of a just, democratic European Georgia, untouched by Russian influence, unshaken by oppression,” Amaglobeli wrote in a letter from Rustavi prison, not far from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

The EU’s human rights commissioner says her pre-trial detention for assaulting a police officer is unjustified.

Fourteen foreign embassies in Georgia have demanded Amaglobeli’s immediate release and a review of her case, describing her detention as another worrying example of intimidation of journalists in Georgia.

Mzia Amaglobeli was detained twice on 11 January in highly contentious circumstances, during a protest against the Georgian Dream government in the Black Sea port of Batumi.

A video promoted repeatedly on state media shows her lightly slapping the Batumi police chief on the cheek.

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has condemned her actions.

“Everyone must understand that the police officer is inviolable, the police officer represents the state and the strength of the state,” Kobakhidze told a press briefing.

If found guilty of assault she faces between four and seven years in jail.

Amaglobeli is one of many hundreds of protesters to have been arrested across Georgia. Opposition leaders are among those who have been detained and in some cases injured by gangs of pro-government thugs.

Photos of the journalist alongside calls for her release adorn the main protest sites in Tbilisi as well as her home city of Batumi.

Her family, friends and colleagues describe her as a peaceful, calm and hard-working person who founded Batumi news website Batumelebi with her business partner Eter Turadze in 2001.

They went on to launch national news website, Netgazeti, and today both sites are regarded as unbiased and trustworthy news sources in Georgia’s deeply polarised media.

Batumelebi’s third-floor offices look on to the snow-capped Ajara mountains. The Georgian flag hangs from the balcony alongside the flags of the EU and Ukraine.

“Mzia is well known in journalistic circles, but she was not a public person,” says civil rights activist Malkaz Chkonia, who has taken part in the nightly protests in Batumi.

“She was only 25 years old, a young brave journalist when she started the newspaper Batumelebi which has been fighting for freedom of expression, and defending human rights through different government regimes in this country.”

Her niece Iveta, who grew up with Mzia, describes her as a workaholic.

On the night she was arrested, she was still at her office and most of her staff had gone home for the night.

Colleague and investigative journalist Irma Dimidtradze says her boss had not been taking part in the daily anti-government protests.

But when Amaglobeli learned that a friend was among several protesters detained for putting up posters for an upcoming general strike, she rushed to the police station.

“People were chanting ‘sticking up posters is not a crime’, and to demonstrate that it is not a crime, Mzia did the same thing,” says Dimitradze.

Weeks earlier, as the protests took hold, the Georgian Dream government banned face masks at protests and increased fines for making “inscriptions or drawings” on building facades.

Amaglobeli was captured on video attaching a poster to the wall of a police station before she was led away by several officers.

“We learned later in the police report that she disobeyed a lawful order of the police that she was swearing and insulting them,” said Irma Dimitradze, adding that all of it was untrue.

She was charged with an administrative offence and released. Her niece, Iveta, was with other relatives waiting for her: “When Mzia came out, I even joked with her saying: ‘Look, if you wanted to rest, to have a day off, you did not need to do this.'”

But soon the situation escalated, and more arrests followed.

Amoglobeli was seen confronting Batumi police chief Irakli Dgeubadze. As he walked away, she grabbed him by his sleeve and slapped him.

Footage taken minutes afterwards shows her being led away by police.

Off camera, she is taunted with highly threatening and abusive language which witnesses have said is the voice of the chief of police.

Amaglobeli’s lawyers say he later spat in her face and refused to give her water or access to toilets. She was also denied access to her lawyers for several hours.

Batumi prosecutors argued that her slap was motivated by “revenge”. A judge rejected bail by her legal team and remanded her in pre-trial custody.

In the dock, Amaglobeli looked defiant, wearing in a blue hoody and holding a copy of the book by Nobel Prize-winner Maria Ressa, “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: the fight for our future.”

Twenty days into her hunger strike on 31 January, Georgia’s Special Penitentiary Service urged Amaglobeli to stop “in the best interests of her health”.

Leading Georgian Dream figure in parliament Mamuka Mdinaradze said it was wrong to portray her as “a person who has committed great heroism… she should start eating and everything would be over”.

Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, another leading light in the party, suggested Amaglobeli could come out and admit “I made a mistake, and I apologise”, as the Batumi was a dignified police officer.

However, several groups have said it is the authorities who are in the wrong by detaining her in the first place. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association says her prosecution is “politically motivated”.

Since the beginning of the pro-EU protests, hundreds of protesters have been detained, beaten and treated inhumanely, according to Transparency International Georgia.

More than 90 journalists have been violently attacked and their equipment damaged.

No police officers have faced charges.

Georgia’s independent Special Investigations Service, which investigates allegations made against officials says it has launched an investigation into possible abuse of power in Amaghlobeli’s case by “certain employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia”.

It says 10 police officers, including Batumi’s police chief, have been questioned as witnesses. None have been suspended from duty.

She is next due in court on 4 March.