Case of jailed journalist highlights Georgian ruling party's tensions with West

TBILISI -- The imprisonment -- and now pardon -- of a prominent Georgian journalist comes as the ruling party Georgian Dream continues to untangle its relations with the West.

President Salome Zourabichvili on June 22 pardoned Nika Gvaramia, founder of pro-opposition broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi and a former member of parliament.

Zourabichvili is at odds with the ruling party.

In May 2022, a court convicted Gvaramia of abuse of power related to his work in 2019 as the director of another broadcaster, Rustavi 2, and sentenced him to three and a half years in jail.

The sentence made him the only journalist detained in Georgia for his work.

"I am not going to give any explanation for this decision. It is my discretionary right, and I am using it today," said Zourabichvili.

Zourabichvili's pardon came after Georgia's Supreme Court rejected Gvaramia’s appeal on June 19.

Some observers have accused Russia-leaning Georgia Dream of orchestrating Gvaramia's imprisonment to derail the country's European Union (EU) candidacy.

Gvaramia improperly used a work vehicle belonging to Rustavi 2, alleged prosecutors.

"The court decided that Gvaramia harmed the television station's owners, even though they themselves denied that," Tamta Muradashvili, Gvaramia's lawyer, told Caravanserai.

"And even if that were true, it was not a criminal case."

Political silencing

Top government officials gloated openly at the jailing of the founder of the television station most critical of them, and Gvaramia's arrest was widely seen by activists and rights groups as politically motivated.

"The sentencing of Nika Gvaramia is a blatant act of politically motivated prosecution in retaliation of his dissenting views and criticism of the authorities," Amnesty International said in a May 2022 statement.

"He now faces years behind bars as the government ramps up efforts to silence dissenting voices. Nika Gvaramia must be immediately released," the report said at the time.

Gvaramia's case also appeared in the US State Department's 2022 country report on human rights practices for Georgia.

"'The imprisonment of Nika Gvaramia is perceived as a warning and threat to other independent media outlets to stop critical coverage of the government's performance, to cease watchdog activities, and to refrain from the disclosure of facts that are undesirable to the government,'" the State Department said, quoting a consortium of 42 Georgian organisations.

"On December 7, following the appeals court decision to uphold Gvaramia's sentence, the PDO [Georgian public defender's office] stated that 'political motivation is clear' in the case and Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights was violated'," the State Department added.

A reckoning with the EU

Once a beacon of democracy, Georgia is backsliding toward authoritarianism and returning to Russia's sphere of influence, according to observers.

In June 2022, the EU listed 12 priorities that Georgia needed to address ahead of another candidacy status vote in December 2023.

Given the consistent behaviour of Georgian Dream since winning its first election in 2012, the ruling party likely welcomes reproach from the EU.

Moldova and Ukraine, unlike Georgia, gained EU candidate status in June 2022.

Among the priorities for Georgia was a requirement to improve press freedom, and Gvaramia's release became viewed as a prerequisite for Georgia's EU membership.

The EU urged Georgia to "undertake stronger efforts to guarantee a free, professional, pluralistic and independent media environment, notably by ensuring that criminal procedures brought against media owners fulfil the highest legal standards, and by launching impartial, effective and timely investigations in cases of threats against the safety of journalists".

Eighty-eight percent of Georgians support EU membership, POLITICO reported in April 2022, citing polls. That support has consistently hovered around that level through years of polling.

But Georgian's own government is not responding with any sense of urgency.

As of now, Georgia has met only 3 of the 12 priorities that the EU set in 2022, EURACTIV.com reported in June, citing an interim EU update.

Georgia made "no progress" on media pluralism and particularly needs to protect journalists and media owners, according to the EU.