UNM’s Ana Tsitlidze: Unprecedented repression could not break the United National Movement; we will fight to the end for Georgia’s freedom

“The decision of now-former Constitutional Court Judge Manana Kobakhidze, first to recuse herself from the ruling on banning political parties and then to resign altogether, demonstrates the pressure being exerted on judges,” United National Movement member Ana Tsitlidze has stated.

According to her, Manana Kobakhidze’s resignation was preceded by a shattering opinion from the Venice Commission.

“The Venice Commission stated very clearly that banning political parties is not a defence of the constitutional order, as Georgian Dream tries to portray it, but an attempt to fundamentally shake the foundations of Georgia’s constitutional order. In 2012, Bidzina Ivanishvili promised Georgian citizens free money, prosperity, and development; instead, after 14 years of his rule, Georgian citizens have received total corruption, poverty, international isolation, and citizens fleeing the country into emigration. Rather than promising to solve citizens’ problems, the oligarchic regime offers only spectacles. Georgia’s Constitutional Court violated the constitution back when it accepted the Georgian Dream regime’s constitutional lawsuit based on the report written by Tsulukiani’s Russian commission, secretly and without hearing the parties. The Constitutional Court judges must understand the following: the decision you are being ordered to deliver by the Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili is a decision written in the Kremlin by the Russian occupying regime. With this decision, you are not banning the United National Movement and its hundreds of thousands of supporters; you are attempting to kill the idea of a free and European Georgia,” Tsitlidze said.

She added that the United National Movement has been the main bastion in the fight against the Russian oligarch Ivanishvili for 14 years.

“With your decision, you are not only creating a constitutional basis for the occupying state, Russia, and banning not just the United National Movement, but you are attempting to ban Giorgi Antsukhelidze’s fight for freedom, the Shindisi heroes’ fight for Georgia’s territorial integrity, and Guram Gabeskiria’s words—‘never, ever’; you are trying to ban Zhiuli Shartava’s fight for Georgia’s territorial integrity. Today you face a choice between the Russian occupying regime and your homeland. You must understand that your individual responsibility will be immense. If you execute the orders of the Russian occupying regime, you will be subject to strict international sanctions. The oligarchic regime will inevitably change, but your responsibility and the international sanctions that will certainly be imposed on you will never change. The United National Movement has been the main bastion against the Russian oligarch Ivanishvili for 14 years. Unprecedented repression has failed to break or bring the United National Movement to its knees. Back in 2012, we warned Georgian citizens that Bidzina Ivanishvili would bring total Russification to Georgia and destroy Georgian statehood. Whatever the Constitutional Court’s ruling may be, the United National Movement will never, ever bow to the Russian occupying regime and will fight to the end against Bidzina Ivanishvili for Georgia’s freedom,” Ana Tsitlidze noted.