Jailed ex-president criticizes TI-Georgia for not including him on list of political prisoners

“Shamefully, in the fifth year of my imprisonment, Transparency International Georgia did not include me on the list of political prisoners. In fact, this did not surprise me, since it was precisely the Georgian non-governmental sector that played a key role in discrediting my reformist government and bringing Ivanishvili to power,” wrote jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili on Facebook.

Saakashvili believes that with this silence, NGOs contributed to the establishment of a dictatorship. He also urged the NGO’s to admit that he was the “main political prisoner and problem for Ivanishvili’s regime.”

“And how is it that the Council of Europe, which you cite, designates me as a political prisoner and Putin’s personal captive in its numerous resolutions (with the European Parliament and Amnesty International doing the same), yet you do not put me in the same categories?” he wrote.

Mikheil Saakashvili said that until the NGOs raise their voice on mass political persecution of the opposition and admit their responsibility and mistakes in the establishment of the current situation, they would not “play a serious role in Georgia.”

He said he hoped that “honest NGOs will also step forward and speak out against this injustice,” writes Mikheil Saakashvili.