UNM’s Pharulava: If anyone is obstructing the process of releasing political prisoners, it is the criminal, corrupt GD regime

“If anyone is obstructing the process of releasing political prisoners, it is the criminal, corrupt regime of Georgian Dream, which wants to retain power in this country through repression and terror,” Lasha Pharulava, a member of the United National Movement, said.

Pharulava described a statement made today by Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili as cynical.

“It is cynical for Georgian Dream, the so-called criminal ‘Dream,’ and its representative Papuashvili to make such a statement when you steal money from the army, deprive children in kindergartens of their meals, demolish schools, fail to build new ones, and leave buildings intended for rehabilitation abandoned.

“You only make people’s lives more expensive while promising them that you will make life cheaper — and after all this, everything becomes increasingly expensive. Georgian Dream no longer has either the moral or political right to speak about anyone or anything.

“Their only instruments are repression and terror. Their goal is to retain power in this way. They have no legitimacy whatsoever. If anyone has legitimacy, it is Catholicos-Patriarch Shio III, who wanted political prisoners to leave prison. However, Georgian Dream, the criminal ‘Dream,’ is obstructing this process. That is precisely why only several people have been released from prison, rather than all political prisoners.

“When Shio III was enthroned, there were political statements, including from our side, that it was necessary to end the political crisis and release political prisoners. The representatives of the Patriarchate and Patriarch Shio III not only agreed with this, but also began working on the process.

“If anyone is obstructing this process, it is only the criminal, corrupt regime of Georgian Dream, which wants to retain power in this country through repression and terror,” Pharulava said.

For context, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili wrote on social media that the 72 people currently in prison are “not only serving sentences for their own crimes, but remain prisoners of the shamelessness of those who first urged them to break the law, then abandoned them, and now declare their release a moral crime.” He added that the most accurate name for them would be “prisoners of shamelessness.”