Day: June 29, 2026

The Georgia First (“Jer Sakartvelo” in Georgian) initiative, founded by Viktor Kipiani, a think tank figure and former lawyer of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, who split with the billionaire in 2023, held a founding congress to become a political party.

At its founding congress on June 28 at the Courtyard Marriott hotel in Tbilisi, Kipiani was elected the party’s chair. It has yet to be registered by the Public Registry.

“We do not claim to be only an opposition party. We aim for more. We want to be a political party oriented toward change,” he said. Kipiani also chairs the analytical organization Geocase.

Georgia First describes its ideology as “pragmatic right” and seeks to build a “thinking state.”

The party counts several prominent public figures among its ranks, including former Georgian Public Broadcaster anchor Vasil Ivanov-Chikovani, diplomat Valeri Chechelashvili, and former Deputy Economy Minister Nikoloz Alavidze, as well as activist Giorgi Tumasyan.

Viktor Kipiani, as a Senior Partner at MKD Law, represented Bidzina Ivanishvili’s interests as the latter reported facing troubles with his assets in the West following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Kipiani providing lengthy letters detailing Ivanishvili’s concerns. The two parted ways in March 2023, after Georgian Dream first introduced the widely contested Foreign Agents Law that sparked mass protests. Kipiani publicly criticized the bill and the ruling party, and shortly afterward, then-Georgian Dream MP Anri Okhanashvili confirmed that he no longer represented Ivanishvili.

Addressing delegates at the founding congress, Kipiani said Georgia First rejects glorification and the cult of personality, as well as condemns political revenge and retribution,” and deems it “unacceptable to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly countries in the civilized world.

“As for relations with other parties, we are open to engaging with everyone,” Kipiani further said, according to Interpressnews. “We have our own special attitude toward the [Opposition] Alliance. We believe that ‘Georgia First’ has the natural capacity to develop beyond the alliance, although this does not exclude personal communications or individual contacts.”

The congress elected the party’s political council, which includes Rusudan Tevzadze, a former member of the political council of the opposition For Georgia party, who renounced her parliament mandate in October 2025, Vakhtang Kapanadze, former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Georgia, Valeri Chechelashvili, and GeoCase researchers Giorgi Antadze and Nikoloz Khatiashvili.

Several recently launched opposition parties have faced obstacles in securing official registration with the Public Registry, the state agency responsible for registering political parties in Georgia. Among them was Freedom Square, whose registration was rejected twice and was finally secured in November 2025, as well as the Federalists.

Georgia is engaged in advanced negotiations on contributing troops to a proposed US-backed international stabilization force in the Gaza Strip, AzerNEWS reports via the Israeli media.

On the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Georgian non-governmental organisations issued a joint statement accusing the authorities of allowing torture and ill-treatment to become a systemic problem and using them for political purposes.

The statement says that, despite Georgia’s national and international commitments, the state has spent years creating an environment that encourages torture and ill-treatment. The organisations also argue that the authorities fail to hold those responsible to account and ignore recommendations from both international organisations and local human rights groups.

Arrests, alleged violence and tighter speech restrictions: Georgian ombudsman report

“Of the 573 people detained during the protests, 302 reported ill-treatment”

According to the NGOs, the problem became particularly acute during protests in November and December 2024. They say law enforcement officers used torture and ill-treatment against peaceful demonstrators between 28 November and 7 December 2024, as well as on 2 February 2025.

The organisations say documentation collected by local human rights groups supports these claims. They also cite reports by Georgia’s Public Defender and international monitoring bodies, including the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the OSCE Moscow Mechanism.

The statement also refers to the protests in spring 2024, when rights groups also documented cases of ill-treatment by law enforcement officers.

The organisations draw particular attention to the use of special equipment during the 2024 demonstrations. They argue that adding chemical irritants to water cannons without a clear legal framework amounts to the use of experimental weapons.

Georgia: 500 days of protests, crackdowns and resilience – Amnesty International report

According to the organisation, the authorities are using state institutions to suppress dissent.

The statement also cites figures from Georgia’s Public Defender. It says that between 1 March 2025 and 20 February 2026, representatives of the ombudsman’s office visited 131 people detained during protests. Of those, 35 alleged police ill-treatment, while 17 had visible injuries.

The NGOs also point to cases in which people detained in 2025 said police forced them to strip completely under the pretext of a personal search. The organisations argue that the practice violates human dignity and breaches international standards.

The authors of the statement say court hearings in 2025 and 2026 identified at least 17 cases in which people detained on criminal charges in connection with protest rallies alleged ill-treatment.

The organisations argue that the problem extends beyond protests. They cite the alleged group assault of a civilian by police officers in the city of Gori in May 2026. They also refer to footage broadcast by TV Pirveli on 13 June, which they say shows violence against detainees inside a police station.

According to the statement, ineffective state investigations, the misclassification of alleged offences and impunity for those responsible have entrenched the practice of torture and ill-treatment. The organisations also say police officers are still not required to wear body cameras, officers often lack identification badges, and the abolition of the Special Investigation Service in 2025 further weakened the mechanism for independently investigating alleged police abuse.

The authors also criticise the authorities’ approach to civil society. They argue that the ruling Georgian Dream party is trying to restrict the work of non-governmental organisations through restrictive legislation, foreign agent designations, the threat of criminal liability and other measures. As a result, they say, alleged victims of torture are left without legal, psychological and other forms of support.

Geostat: Number of convicted in Georgia reached record high in 2025

Georgia also ranks second in Europe in the number of prisoners per 100,000 population.

The NGOs conclude that torture and ill-treatment have become a systemic and widespread practice in Georgia that serves to strengthen authoritarian rule.

The organisations end the statement with a series of recommendations for the authorities. Among other measures, they call for an independent and effective investigation into allegations of violence during the 2024 protests, accountability for those allegedly responsible and their superiors, mandatory body cameras for police officers, compulsory identification badges on police uniforms, a ban on the practice of forcing detainees to strip completely, an explicit prohibition on adding chemical agents to water cannons, and rehabilitation and compensation for victims of torture and ill-treatment.

Georgian NGOs’ statement on torture in Georgia

Tel Aviv’s cabinet vote today is, for most of the world, a long-overdue moral statement. For Armenia’s newly re-elected prime minister, navigating the congratulations requires a diplomatic dexterity he has been quietly developing for two years.

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