12 European Parliament members call on Salome Zurabishvili to pardon Nika Gvaramia
Published:
GAIN YOUR FREEDOM TOGETHER WITH US!
12 MEPs react to the imprisonment of Mtavari Channel CEO Nika Gvaramia and write to the Georgian president to exercise the right to pardon.
The statement says that having political prisoners in the country is incompatible with the country's EU candidate status.
We offer the statement unchanged:
Dear Madam President,
Georgia has been on the path of European integration for many years. This path is not an easy
one, but it is firmly supported by the vast majority of the Georgian People.
Recently, with the European Commission’s recommendation and the European Council’s
decision, a perspective for Georgia to receive EU candidate status has opened. A historic
opportunity for Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia was granted due to immense sacrifices that
Ukraine is making, to defend the values on which also EU is built upon, against the Russian
war of aggression.
We, the supporters of Georgia’s pro-European path in the European Parliament, are convinced
that such an opportunity must not be overlooked and all possible effort bringing Georgia closer
to the EU candidate status and the start of membership negotiations with the EU should be
made.
Unfortunately, Georgia is widely perceived as a country where politically motivated
persecution and imprisonment of public figures critical to current Government is possible. The
fact that there are political prisoners is incompatible with a prospective EU candidate country
status.
The European Parliament has condemned the sentencing of Nika Gvaramia, director of the TV
channel Mtavari, on dubious charges of money laundering, bribery and document forgery
related to his past activities as director of Rustavi 2 TV. This sentence has been widely
perceived in Georgia as an attempt to silence a voice critical of the current Government.
However, on 2 November, the Tbilisi Court of Appeals has upheld the sentence.
We stress that this case highlights a persistent mistrust of the Georgian judicial system, the
need of increasing independence and impartiality of the judiciary. It also negatively affects
media freedom and further induces polarisation.
We, therefore, address you with a call to consider exercising the power of the Presidential
pardon so that Mr. Gvaramia is released from prison.
We sincerely hope that you will take leadership in bringing Georgia closer to its strategic goal
of EU integration.
