PM Kobakhidze says Georgia has faced “constant political terror” and foreign-backed destabilisation efforts

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Thursday said the country had faced five attempted revolutions over the past four years, four of them involving violence, describing the developments as “political terror” orchestrated by what he called “foreign agents”.

In his interview with Imedi TV, Kobakhidze noted that his Government had introduced a series of legislative measures to counter what he described as political terror, including the transparency law, amendments to legislation on assemblies and demonstrations, stricter administrative regulations and measures against the spread of hate speech.

“Georgia is one of the clearest examples when it comes to political terror. If we look back at 2004-2012, the Georgian people lived under political terror carried out by foreign-controlled agents who were then in power. Since then, particularly from the end of 2020, our country and population have again been subjected to constant political terror”, the PM said.

“We have gone through five attempted revolutions alone. When a country faces five revolution attempts in four years, four of them violent, this is nothing other than political terror. This is what the agents, whom we once referred to as the opposition, have been doing. They cannot be called an opposition in any sense - they are ordinary foreign agents with a single assignment: to keep the Georgian population under constant political terror. We will not allow this”, Kobakhidze continued.

He emphasised that the transparency law was specifically a law against political terror and other measures, including amendments to the law on assemblies and demonstrations, stricter administrative provisions and regulations related to hate speech, were all legislative steps against political terror.

“When we adopted the transparency law, the then U.S. Ambassador said it was a black day for Georgian democracy. 'Super Tuesday' there and a 'black day for democracy' here - both are the same farce. That statement itself was an act of political terror”, Kobakhidze said.

Prime Minister also argued that comments made at the time by former US Ambassador Kelly Degnan had encouraged revolutionary processes in Georgia.

“When your country faces five attempted revolutions in four years, four of them violent, this is nothing other than political terror. One example was the case of Aleko Elisashvili, who carried out what was effectively a terrorist act by attempting to set the court building on fire. Yet even in that case, expressions of sympathy were voiced. If we interpret the statement made by the European Union Ambassador correctly, he effectively described the attempted terrorist act as an expression of freedom of expression by equating an attempt to burn down a court building with free speech”, Kobakhidze said.

When asked about the Public Defender's position on the sentence imposed on Aleko Elisashvili, Kobakhidze said this was a subjective matter.

“The public saw everything. In any country, when someone attempts to burn down the building of one of the state's key institutions, by its legal and political nature it qualifies as a terrorist act”, Kobakhidze concluded.