Georgia has begun its drift towards “illiberal democracies”. Clément Girardot, a French journalist based in Tbilisi, recently paid the price.
It was around 6 a.m. on Wednesday February 12 when, after more than an hour’s wait at the passport control counter at Tbilisi airport, a policeman handed me a misprinted sheet of paper to notify me that I’d been banned from entering the country. By way of justification, he ticked the “other reason” box. So I’m not being turned away because of a crime, an unpaid fine, invalid documents or a risk of disturbing the peace.
Since 2010 and my first visit to Georgia, my successive passports have been covered with stamps. I had never had any problems whatsoever with the border guards or the police.
There was little doubt that I was being targeted for my work as a journalist. Which of my articles had displeased? Or was it my posts on social networks warning of the Tbilisi authorities’ repression? What could this mysterious “other reason” be?
Officially, I won’t know much more. But I soon learned from contacts that my name was on the Internal Intelligence Service’s “red list”, as I was considered a threat to the government.
Once a “model” of democratic transition for the Caucasus region and beyond, Georgia has drifted in recent years towards the clan of “illiberal democracies”. It is now eagerly taking the highway to mafia-style autocracy. But with a twist: the autocrat in question holds no official political office. He is simply the country’s richest man, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.
In the end, my misadventure was not all that surprising. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the government of the misnamed “Georgian Dream” party has gradually locked itself into a parallel reality populated by pro-Russian conspiracy theories. The most obvious facts have become its obsession.
Georgian journalists are already paying a high price for this drift. After the electoral fraud of October 26, 2024 and the U-turn on the EU accession process on November 28, local reporters were specifically targeted by the police during the major rallies at the beginning of December. At the same time, the government is redoubling its legislative zeal to dry up funding for the last remaining independent media.
Russian and Belarusian opposition journalists had already suffered arbitrary expulsions in recent years. It was only a matter of time before Western professionals were also targeted.
But unlike the Putin regime, the “Georgian Dream” doesn’t go for media coups. It prefers to attack the weakest, independent journalists who don’t have an editorial staff to back them up or enough notoriety to attract the spotlight. It randomly targets foreigners who have had the misfortune to express their solidarity in the street or on social networks, or even binational families with no history.
This relatively low-key repression – the very essence of which is arbitrariness and impunity – affects different socio-professional categories in turn. The aim is undoubtedly to instill, at little cost, a generalized feeling of fear and anxiety among Georgians as well as Georgia’s foreign friends.
Everyone knows that no counterweight will be able to reverse the illegal decisions of the police, validated by a justice system that is in step with the times. This strategy of systemic degradation of the rule of law will take some time, but it is deepening without physical violence, without deaths, and therefore without too much diplomatic upheaval. It is being distilled like a poison that is slowly killing the last vestiges of Georgian democracy.
This article appeared in AMNESTY magazine n°121, May 2025. Republished with the author’s permission.
What they said about the entry ban on journalists in Georgia
“Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 22 other organizations denounce, in an open letter, the authoritarian escalation and increased repression targeting the independent media in Georgia, taking the form, in particular, of the ban on foreign journalists, like that of French photographer Marylise Vigneau, without valid justification. International civil society calls for urgent action by the European Union in the face of these abuses, which are incompatible with democratic values”.
To Remember
- Following the police brutality observed during the protests against Georgian journalists, a
new phase of repression, symbolized by the case of Mzia Amaghlobeli, has hit the press in
the form of arrests and trials. - Non-Georgian journalists are banned from entering the country. Reporters Without Borders
(RSF) condemns this worrying trend, which aims to hinder independent journalistic coverage
of protest movements.
Mzia Amaglobeli, journalist and political prisoner
Founder of the Netgazeti and Batumelebi newspapers, journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli has been in pre-trial detention for almost 6 months.
First arrested for “poster-posting” during an anti-government demonstration, then released, she was arrested again on January 12.
She was charged with slapping a policeman who had repeatedly insulted her. According to the NGO Transparency International, the slap “was symbolic and not strong enough to cause injury” …an act “of such minor importance could not constitute a crime” (source:Euronews 25.1.2025).
As soon as she was remanded in custody, she began a hunger strike, which she continued for 38 days, at the cost of a severely deteriorated state of health.
Mzia Amaghlobeli faces between 4 and 7 years in prison. All international observers consider this sentence to be politically motivated, targeting journalists critical of the government.
On Thursday June 18, the European Parliament passed a motion "demanding the unconditional release of Georgian journalist Mzia Amaglobeli and condemning her politically motivated arrest”. (source: europarl.europa.eu). But nothing seems to sway the clan that has kidnapped power in Georgia….
