Federalists’ Bokeria: Gia Baramidze’s recklessly irresponsible remark deserved severe political condemnation, not criminal prosecution

“Gia Baramidze made a thoughtless, catastrophically irresponsible comment that warranted stern political condemnation, not criminal prosecution,” wrote Giga Bokeria, a leader of the Federalists party, on social media.

Bokeria characterised Baramidze’s detention as another brazen act of cynical repression by the Ivanishvili regime, arguing that the move serves solely to persecute political opponents and disorient the public in a bid to preserve Ivanishvili’s grip on power.

“Freedom of speech protects even entirely irresponsible, foolish, and downright harmful comments and statements.

In my view, Gia Baramidze made a thoughtless, catastrophically irresponsible comment that deserved severe political condemnation, not criminal prosecution. In stark contrast to him, the Ivanishvili regime has spent years engaging in calculated, deliberate propaganda aimed at normalising our enemy and undermining Georgian statehood.

From the very moment he entered politics, Ivanishvili personally and his inner circle have waged a treasonous campaign directly accusing Georgia of starting the 2008 Russian aggression, under the slogan of ‘bombing sleeping Tskhinvali’, accompanied by Ivanishvili’s personal assertions that no aggression had occurred in the Tskhinvali region and that ‘only a single wall was struck by a shell’. This extends to issuing apologies to the ‘Abkhaz and Ossetian’ peoples, thereby placing blame on the Georgian people and the Georgian state for the period of Russian military aggression and the genocide of Georgians in the 1990s.

If irresponsible comments and statements can serve as grounds for legal prosecution, then numerous representatives of the Ivanishvili regime, first and foremost Bidzina Ivanishvili himself, should have been imprisoned long ago for this deliberate, hideous propaganda.

Following the defeat of this disgraceful regime, one of Georgia’s chief tasks must be building a judicial system that precludes any government from weaponising the state apparatus against political opponents and freedom of speech. State resources must be expended not on persecuting political rivals, but on eradicating enemy infiltration within the country, bolstering national defence, and acquiring strong allies across the free world. Only through this path can we neutralise external threats, safeguard the lives and liberty of our citizens, and restore Georgia’s territorial integrity,” Bokeria wrote.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia arrested former Minister of Internal Affairs and Defence (2003–2004) Gia Baramidze pursuant to a court warrant on charges of state treason, specifically manifested through sabotage, which carries a penalty of up to four years’ imprisonment.

According to the official statement from prosecutors, during a July broadcast of Iago Khvichia’s program ‘The Birth of Georgia’, Baramidze alleged that during the initial phase of the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia, Georgian forces did not take prisoners and executed them on the spot—thereby accusing the national armed forces of violating international humanitarian law and committing grave war crimes.