Georgian

Oct. 22 (UPI) — The European Parliament announced Wednesday it granted imprisoned journalists Andrzej Poczobut and Mzia Amaglobeli with its 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought as the two political prisoners sit in isolation for speaking up.

The France-based European Parliament awarded Andrzej Poczobut of Belarus and Mzia Amaglobeli from Georgia with the prize to honor “exceptional” people or organizations that defend human rights, fundamental freedoms and safeguard minority rights.

On Wednesday, EP President Roberta Metsola revealed the decision by parliament’s political group leaders in the plenary chamber.

“The courage of these journalists in speaking out against injustice, even behind bars, stands as a powerful symbol of freedom and democracy,” Metsola posted on X.

The Sakharov Prize named after Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, since 1988, honors those who fight for “respect of international law, democracy and rule of law.”

Its 2024 laureates were Venezuelan political opposition leaders, including María Corina Machado who in 2025 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Nominations must be issued by at least 40 European Parliament members or by its political groups.

Poczobut and Amaglobeli were jointly nominated by the European People’s Party group, the European Conservatives and Reformists group, Lithuanian EP member Rasa Juknevičienė and 60 other colleagues.

Prize nominations were presented on Sept. 23 at a joint meeting of the EP’s foreign affairs and development committees in addition to its human rights subcommittee.

In August, scores of international human rights and journalism advocates joined to condemn the conviction and two-year prison sentence of independent Georgian journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli.

Amaghlobeli, notably, is Georgia’s first female political prisoner since its 1991 independence from the former Russian Soviet Union.

Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and blogger from the Polish minority in Belarus, has been known for criticism of longtime Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko and his regime.

Poczobut, detained in 2021 and sentenced to eight years in a penal colony, has become a symbolic figure in the struggle for freedom and democracy in the country. His current condition is unknown and his family is denied any visits as the EP has called his his immediate and unconditional release.

The parliament granted its 2022 award to the people of Ukraine amid Russia’s full-scale arbitrary invasion of its neighboring country, and in 2024 to the late Jina Mahsa Amini and Iran’s Women, Life, Freedom Movement.

Other finalists included Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, the 2025 Budapest Pride events in Hungary, and the late American conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Meanwhile, the award ceremony with its cash prize will take place December 16 in Strasbourg, France.

Oct. 5 (UPI) — Police in Georgia have made five arrests after clashing with anti-government protestors outside the presidential palace in the country’s capital, Tbilisi.

Police used water cannons and pepper spray to push back demonstrators as tensions persist in the Caucasus nation after the Georgian Dream Party won last year’s elections, which the pro-European Union opposition party has claimed was stolen. Since the vote, the government has stalled its efforts to join the European Union, the BBC reported.

The protests took place on the same day as local elections, which the opposition party has largely boycotted.

The Georgian Dream Party claimed nearly 80% of the vote, and claimed victory in nearly every municipality.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry said that protestors “attempted to force their way inside” the presidential palace and accused organizers of the Saturday rally of inciting violence, according to Bloomberg News.

Former Georgian President Salome Zourabichvile accused protestors in a social media post of holding the demonstrations to “discredit” months of opposition protests in opposition of the ruling party.

“This mockery of taking over the presidential palace can only be staged by the regime to discredit the 310 days peaceful protest of the Georgian people,” she wrote.

Paata Burchuladze, one of the protest organizers, was among those arrested during the demonstrations.

At least 21 police officers and six protestors were taken to the hospital with injuries.

The sentence sees most opposition leaders behind bars as the ruling Georgian Dream squeezes critics and rivals.

A Georgian court has sentenced an opposition leader to seven months in prison, as a crackdown by the governing party on its rivals continues.

The Tbilisi court imposed the sentence on Giorgi Vashadze, a leader of the Strategy Builder party, on Tuesday for failing to cooperate with a commission investigating abuse of power by a former government.

The jailing means that nearly all of the country’s major pro-European opposition figures have now been imprisoned. The crackdown has increased accusations against the ruling Georgian Dream party that it is trampling on democracy amid ongoing protests in the wake of last year’s disputed elections.

Vashadze, deputy minister of justice from 2010 to 2012, was found guilty of refusing to cooperate with a government commission investigating alleged abuse during its time in power under former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Opposition figures say the commission is a ruse used by the government to stifle opponents.

Saakashvili is currently serving a 12-and-a-half-year sentence on charges that rights groups say are politically motivated.

Vashadze, whose party belongs to a coalition that came third in last year’s election, was also handed a two-year ban on holding public office.

Three other opposition figures have been jailed on the same charge.

“The Georgian Dream regime has imprisoned the whole of Georgia. We are fighting for the country’s liberation,” Vashadze said before the verdict, the AFP news agency reported.

Turmoil

Georgia has been racked by political turmoil since Georgian Dream secured a further term in power in October’s parliamentary election.

The opposition continues to dispute the results, claiming vote fraud and Russian interference.

Mass protests broke out, gathering steam when the government announced in November it was suspending talks on joining the European Union in response to a European Parliament resolution rejecting the results of the elections, citing “significant irregularities”.

The protests have continued nightly for more than 200 days, although they have shrunk in size in recent months.

Prominent poet arrested

At a protest outside parliament in Tbilisi on Monday night, Georgia’s most celebrated poet, Zviad Ratiani, was arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer, news agencies reported.

He faces up to seven years in prison.

Ratiani has been a high-profile figure in the protest movement and was arrested at a protest last year, spending a week in prison despite having serious injuries from assaults in custody, AFP reported.