Day: December 31, 2025
Tamar Mearakishvili, a Georgian civic activist, has been released from detention in Tskhinvali, Georgia’s State Security Service confirmed to several media outlets on December 31, adding that she is now in Tbilisi-controlled territory.
The Tskhinvali de facto authorities announced her arrest on December 22, accusing the outspoken activist of spying for Tbilisi. A de facto court ordered her two months of pretrial detention on December 24.
Mearakishvili, a Georgian citizen, went on a hunger strike, and local media reported on December 30 that she had been hospitalized due to deteriorating health. She had reportedly lost at least 10 kilograms while in detention.
Mearakishvili has lived in the occupied territory for years. The Social Justice Center, a human rights group, said her arrest was “a continuation of eight years of persecution and harassment practices against her” and that the de facto authorities “kept her in total isolation for eight years and left her without documents necessary for travel.”
Mearakishvili had faced arrest and prosecution before. She was briefly detained in 2017, accused of spreading defamatory information against local de facto authorities, and later prosecuted on allegations of fabricating official documents by claiming “South Ossetian” citizenship without renouncing Georgian citizenship. In 2019, however, a court in Akhalgori lifted charges against her.