Supporters Want to Release Saakashvili, Georgian Authorities Avoid War With Russia

A stormy political life is in full swing in Georgia, Georgian politicians do not have to be bored. They have such a figure as Mikheil Saakashvili, who, both in the president's chair and in the bed of a prisoner, keeps everyone in good shape.

At the end of last year, lawyers for the former Georgian president asked the Tbilisi City Court to release him from prison "due to deteriorating health" or, alternatively, "for a suspension of the sentence, in accordance with the law."

The petition consists of 15 volumes. Psycho-rehabilitation center "Empathy" in early January published part of the report on the state of health of Mikheil Saakashvili from June 1 to November 28. The publication includes 2,980 pages. According to the document, the prisoner had more than 20 diagnoses or symptoms, of which "about 10 diagnoses are leading, which makes his condition incompatible with imprisonment."

Among them are fever, anorexia, rapid weight loss, muscle, joint and bone pain, muscle loss, which may be the result of an unidentified infectious process or even possible poisoning.

The chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze, said that “the Empathy organization is directly connected with the National Movement and its leader has never hidden this, so the reliability of this organization is zero.

And here an interesting point becomes clear. It turns out that, according to Article 283 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia, serving a prisoner's sentence may be postponed on the basis of a forensic medical examination report if the convicted person suffers from a serious illness that prevents the execution of the sentence. Postponement of punishment is also possible until the prisoner has fully recovered or his state of health has improved significantly. According to the following article, the court has the right to release the convict from serving the sentence if his state of health is incompatible with the execution of the sentence and, according to the conclusion of the examination, recovery and (or) a significant improvement in the state of health of the convict is not expected.

But even taking this into account, the doctors did not consider it expedient to transfer Saakashvili to court (due to illegal border crossing). Therefore, Judge Nino Chakhnashvili postponed the hearing and did not set a date for the next court session.

On November 28, Mikheil Saakashvili was visited by the People's Defender of Georgia, Nino Lomdzharia. She said that she talked with the former president for 10 minutes because it is difficult for him to talk longer and that Saakashvili's health has deteriorated sharply, this can be seen visually. According to her, Saakashvili lost a lot of weight, and the doctors of the clinic confirmed that "he is practically lying all the time."

However, the opponents of the former Georgian leader have their own opinion. Chairman of the Committee for Human Rights and Civil Integration Mikheil Sarjveladze stated that "the main task of Saakashvili's supporters is to ensure that Saakashvili escapes punishment."

According to him, the former president's comrades-in-arms are well aware that there is no crisis situation and no particular difficulty in the prisoner's health.

“He has a psychological problem, incompatibility with the camera, but because of this, prisoners are not released anywhere, in any civilization,” he told reporters.

Well, naturally. If yesterday you were an omnipotent ruler, met with the presidents of the strongest countries in the world, and on your orders, tanks, artillery and planes rained down deadly fire on entire cities and villages in South Ossetia, and today you are a prisoner without rights, then anyone will have a psychological problem, - and not alone.

However, the topic of Saakashvili in Georgia is far from being dominant. The main question for Georgia today is whether the country will enter into an armed confrontation against the Russian Federation, whether it will open a second front against Russia, to which it is actively called. The leadership of Georgia, to its credit, in this matter is fundamentally guarding the interests of its people and categorically refuses to follow the lead of the forces that want to use the fate of Georgia in their own interests.

Instead of a military confrontation with Russia, Georgia is strengthening integration ties with Western states. And she is praised for this and set as an example. The editor of the European Bureau of Radio Liberty, Rikard Jozwiak, said that in terms of fulfilling the technical criteria for rapprochement with the European Union, Georgia is ahead of Moldova and Ukraine.

Yozviak noted: "it is clear that Georgia will receive the best assessment, which is the result of many years of work by pro-European and somewhat reform-oriented governments." According to him, Georgia is assessed as "medium prepared", including in the areas of economy and finance. However, the country lags behind in the areas of law, intellectual property and agriculture.

The assessment reports published by the European Commission on the Associated Trio (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova) in June 2022 also confirm the political criteria for EU membership. Georgia was awarded the European Perspective last year. The European Commission presented the country with 12 recommendations that must be fulfilled in order to obtain the status of a candidate member of the EU. It should be noted that Moldova and Ukraine have become candidate countries for EU membership.

In early January, a delegation of the Human Rights Committee of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly visited Georgia. At meetings with deputies, members of the government and representatives of non-governmental organizations, the coordination of work and priority issues for Georgia were discussed.

Members of the delegation met with a member of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Civil Integration of the Parliament of Georgia David Sergeenko, they were interested in the legal status of Georgian citizens in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Members of the delegation were particularly interested in whether there had been any change in relations after the events in Ukraine, the same statement said, which also drew attention to Georgia’s willingness and desire to solve problems through dialogue through the Geneva International Discussions and the Prevention and Response Mechanism for incidents.

As you can see, the Europeans do not miss the opportunity to wake up pain points in order to exert a psychological influence on the leadership of Georgia.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili, who is in Yerevan on a visit with a government delegation, met with his Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinyan and discussed the main areas of cooperation between the two countries and issues of regional importance.

The parties stressed the role of the Intergovernmental Georgian-Armenian Economic Commission. According to them, the fact that the commission operates under the leadership of the prime ministers of the two countries "is an indicator of the high level of political dialogue between Georgia and the Republic of Armenia."

After the face-to-face meeting, a meeting of the Intergovernmental Economic Commission of the two countries was held under the leadership of the prime ministers of Georgia and Armenia, after which Irakli Garibashvili and Nikol Pashinyan signed an agreement on crossing the state border between countries using biometric identity cards.

In the meantime, in December 2022, Georgia published the results of a study by the Advisory Group on Policy and Governance, which examines the Georgian labor market and its performance in the 15-24 age group in 2017-2021. The number of unemployed youth aged 15+ has increased significantly since the COVID-19 crisis. In 2019, the share of unemployment among young people in this age group was 16.2%, and in 2021 - 18.4%.

Despite the fact that unemployment in Georgia decreased by 4 percentage points in 2017-2019, youth unemployment has been on the rise. The youth unemployment rate increased by 11 percentage points in 2020 and by 4 percentage points in 2021.

Along with the increase in the unemployment rate, the number of young people active in the labor market has also decreased. In 2017, this figure was 207,312 people, in 2021 - 129,718 people (a decrease of 37.4%).

With such results of the economic policy of the Georgian government, the desire to seize South Ossetia as well is simply immoral.

Inal Pliev for IA "Res"

Source: https://cominf.org/node/1166547867