Day: November 18, 2025
The Kutaisi Court of Appeals has upheld the Batumi City Court’s August 6 ruling sentencing journalist and founder of the Batumelebi and Netgazeti online media outlets, Mzia Amaghlobeli, to two years in prison. The members of the appeals panel were Judges Marina Siradze, Nana Jokhadze, and Nikoloz Margvelashvili.
“Imprisonment is neither easy nor simple, but it is not dangerous either. It is not the prison sentence that scares me – what scares me is what I will find outside once I am released,” Amaghlobeli told the court in her concluding remarks before the ruling, according to a live blog by RFE/RL’s Georgian Service.
“Will I find a country fighting for freedom, democracy, and a European future, or will I find a country that propaganda and economic hardships have… Will I find a country that has been taken over by Russia without a single tank?”
“For us, for everyone in this courtroom, dignity lies in defending the Constitution of Georgia. Therefore, I call on all of you to fight before it is too late, because we have an obligation to defend the Constitution.”
The hearing at the Court of Appeals began on November 11, continued on November 14, and concluded today. Mzia Amaghlobeli’s defense requested that the court add case files documenting her international awards and medical records. The defense also questioned whether the first-instance judge who issued the original sentence, Nino Sakhelashvili, had the academic qualifications required to serve as a judge. In addition, the defense requested the return of Amaghlobeli’s personal belongings and mobile phone.
The appeals panel partially granted the motion, allowing Amaghlobeli’s health-related documents and records of her awards to be added to the case file while rejecting the request to access Judge Nino Sakhelashvili’s educational records. The court also agreed to return Mzia Amaghlobeli’s personal belongings but kept her phone in police custody, citing an ongoing examination.
Mzia Amaghlobeli has been arrested since January, following a tense night of arrests in Georgia’s coastal city of Batumi on January 11-12. She was first detained for placing a protest sticker on an outbuilding of the Batumi Police Department, and after her release, was re-arrested for slapping then-Batumi police chief Irakli Dgebuadze during a heated standoff on charges of assaulting a police officer.
Her charges were reclassified to “resistance, threat, or violence against an official” when Judge Nino Sakhelashvili delivered the ruling on August 6, sentencing her to two years in prison. Amaghlobeli’s supporters and international actors have denounced her imprisonment as politically motivated.
Her lawyers have voiced concerns over her health, warning that she is at risk of losing her eyesight due to keratoconus, a progressive eye disease.
Amaghlobeli, while in custody, has received multiple international recognitions, including the most significant and recent Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought – the European Union’s top human rights award, as well as the Free Media Award from Norway’s Fritt Ord Foundation and Germany’s Zeit-Stiftung, and the Forum 2000 International Award for Courage and Responsibility.
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