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Month: May 2024
Georgian Dream MP Dito Samkharadze appears to have admitted to being behind a campaign of vandalism on the offices of various media, civil society organisations, and opposition parties.
In a post on his Facebook profile on Friday evening, Samkharadze said that public pressure on ruling party MPs had been ‘answered’.
‘The low-quality bullying initiated by the neo-fascists, the stateless agents, was answered yesterday! I won’t tolerate the slightest [insult] or forgive you; bully each other!’, he wrote.
Samkharadze included a list of 22 media, political and civil society organisations and a 10-minute video depicting masked people vandalising their offices.
On Friday morning, the organisations named by Samkharadze reported that their offices had been vandalised overnight. Gela Mtivlishvili, the founder of media outlet Mtis Ambebi, published photos of their office with insults spray painted across it and notes saying ‘traitor’. Others targeted included Studio Monitori, an investigative journalist team, queer rights group Tbilisi Pride, opposition parties European Georgia, Girchi, Lelo.
‘What you intend [to do] against us, we will retaliate a thousand times worse, painfully and masterfully!’, Samkharadze added. ‘We will treat you so that you won’t even want to see each other, let alone be in public and charge towards [our homes]!’
A day prior, Samkharadze published a photo of graffiti near his own home saying ‘Slave Samkharadze’, and vowed to answer it in a ‘more bitter way, on a larger scale, and in better quality’.
Samkharadze’s flat was among those of several Georgian MPs to be targetted after the party passed the foreign agent law earlier this week.
The vandalism of the offices and homes and government critics, however, goes back to early May, as protests against the foreign agent law were gaining momentum.
Tens of thousands gathered on Tbilisi’s Europe Square on 11 May. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.
Photo: Shot Kincha/OC Media.
This was also accompanied by widespread reports among government critics and individual protesters of threatening anonymous phone calls. On Friday, there were reports that the calls had restarted. MP Tina Bokuchava from the opposition United National Movement (UNM) said she had received such a call at midnight, along with several of her acquaintances.
The harassment has also been accompanied by several brutal attacks on government critics and opposition figures outside their homes by masked men.
In his post on Friday, Samkharadze, who has previously been accused by the opposition of being behind the attacks, appeared to threaten more.
Left to right: Giorgi Mumladze, Lasha Ghvinianidze, Dimitri Chikovani, and Gia Japaridze. Images via social media.
‘You are very frivolous, we know the identities of every single one of you, if you do something bad to any member of the Georgian Dream, your masters won’t be able to save you!’, he said.
‘By the way, no need to watch your back, we’re not sneaking up on anyone, look ahead, and you better watch yourself!’
The post Georgian Dream MP admits to attacks on NGO and opposition offices appeared first on OC Media.
Китайские инвестиции могут вывести определенные страны на орбиту авторитарного мира. Об этом в интервью «Голосу Америки» заявил бывший посол США в РФ Майкл Мафол. Он считает, что Китай проводит экспансионистскую экономическую политику по всему миру, и в долгосрочной перспективе для стран «являющихся целью» сотрудничество с Пекином может принести к серьезным последствиям. «Китай проводит очень экспансивную […]
Convicted felon Donald J. Trump has attacked the judge and prosecutors, but he will find it far more difficult to attack the twelve jurors who found him guilty Thursday on all 34 counts, after less than two days of deliberation.
Those jurors were not Democrats. They were not politicians. They were not people who had a bias against Trump. They were Americans.
Trump’s lawyers allowed them to become jurors because they showed no bias.
It’s this fact that will be the most damning to Trump’s narrative that he’s being hounded by the Biden administration and Democrats.
Biden should say nothing about the verdict. Democratic lawmakers should maintain a dignified silence.
Let the jury’s verdict speak for itself.
The United States Constitution, in Article III, Section 2, provides that the “Trial of all Crimes …. shall be by Jury.” The founders wanted to ensure that it would be juries — not politicians — who decided the guilt or innocence of other Americans, under the laws of the land.
This is where the rule of law meets the everyday lives of all Americans: Every American citizen has at once time or another been summoned to serve on a jury.
Twelve Americans have now spoken about Trump’s criminal lawlessness. They have spoken clearly, without partisanship or rancor.
Donald Trump is guilty, as charged. He is now a convicted felon.
- This article was published at Robert Reich’s Substack