On the rain-soaked streets of Tbilisi, Georgia, a determined crowd continues to gather near the parliament building, defying the chill and the threat of government reprisal. For nearly a year, Gota Chanturia, a civics teacher, has been a familiar face among the demonstrators. His commitment has come at a steep personal cost: $102,000 in fines—a sum that’s roughly ten times the average annual income in Georgia. Yet, Chanturia’s resolve remains unbroken. “We’ve said that we will be here until the end, and we’re still here,” he told the Associated Press as he marched once again through the capital.
The protests ignited when the Georgian government abruptly suspended talks about joining the European Union, a move that followed a contentious election won by the ruling Georgian Dream party. The opposition, quick to cry foul, alleged the election was rigged. Since then, the rallies have surged and ebbed, but never disappeared, even as the authorities mounted a sweeping crackdown targeting not only demonstrators but also rights groups, nongovernmental organizations, and independent media outlets.
This weekend, as local elections approach, more protests are planned. The timing is no accident: for many, the vote is a litmus test for the country’s democratic future. Georgia, a nation of 3.7 million nestled in the South Caucasus, is now drawing uncomfortable comparisons to its powerful neighbor and former imperial ruler, Russia. According to Human Rights Watch, the country is suffering a “rights crisis.” Giorgi Gogia, the organization’s Europe and Central Asia associate director, describes the current clampdown as unprecedented in Georgia’s independent history. “It’s a question of who would blink first,” Gogia observed. If civil society yields, he warned, Georgians could wake up in an authoritarian state—a dramatic transformation from the vibrant democracy many have known.
The government’s response to dissent has been anything but subtle. After largely peaceful protests in late November 2024, authorities escalated their tactics. Within just two weeks, over 400 people were detained. Amnesty International reports that at least 300 of those detained suffered severe beatings or other ill-treatment, much of it behind closed doors in detention centers. Transparency International Georgia, an anti-corruption watchdog, found that between April 2024 and August 2025, at least 76 people faced criminal prosecution related to the protests, with more than 60 landing behind bars. The true numbers may well be higher.
For families like the Kerashvilis, the crackdown is deeply personal. Ketuna Kerashvili braved the rain at a protest on October 1, 2025, even though her brother Irakli had been arrested the previous December, convicted of disrupting public order, and sentenced to two years in prison. He rejected the charges as unfounded. “All of those boys and girls who are in prison now were trying to protect our country from pro-Russian forces and a pro-Russian government,” Ketuna told the Associated Press, adding that her brother’s trial was “tough to watch.”
But it’s not just activists who are feeling the squeeze. Journalists have found themselves ensnared by the government’s dragnet. Mariam Nikuradze, a respected journalist and co-founder of the independent news site OC Media, has racked up 20,000 lari (about $7,300) in fines—four separate citations for allegedly blocking roads. She insists she was simply covering the demonstrations. Even foreign students aren’t immune: Javid Ahmedov, a journalism student from Azerbaijan, was fined 10,000 lari (about $3,700) after surveillance cameras spotted him filming a protest in July 2025. When he tried to return to Georgia to finish his studies, he was denied entry, putting both his degree and a U.S. scholarship at risk. “I have to be in Georgia,” Ahmedov said from Germany, where he is now an exchange student. “But it’s a big question.”
The government’s arsenal includes more than just fines and arrests. Authorities have deployed automated surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition technology to identify and penalize protesters—sometimes even targeting individuals who were merely present at a rally. Chanturia himself has been fined 56 separate times for allegedly blocking roads, a common charge. He has not paid any of the fines and doesn’t intend to, but new regulations threaten jail time for nonpayment.
Opposition politicians and parties have also become prime targets. In the summer of 2025, eight opposition leaders found themselves jailed for refusing to cooperate with a parliamentary inquiry, while two others were arrested on unrelated charges. The opposition called the detentions politically motivated. The government, meanwhile, has filed lawsuits against several independent television channels and announced plans to petition the Constitutional Court to declare the main opposition party, United National Movement, unconstitutional. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze was blunt: the lawsuit would target “everyone considered to be under the umbrella of the United National Movement, under the radical opposition and under foreign influence—against all of them. Against everyone, everyone.”
In August, the government froze the bank accounts of seven rights groups, accusing them of supplying protest gear—masks, pepper spray, protective glasses—to demonstrators. The organizations countered that the equipment was intended for journalists covering the rallies. Guram Imnadze, from the Social Justice Center (one of the groups affected), argued that the government’s real aim was to “stop all the independent actors in the country, to limit or shrink democratic free spaces in the country, (and) make independent actors such as NGOs, media outlets or individual activists unable to support democracy.”
This narrative of an embattled nation, beset by foreign agents and internal saboteurs, is one the government has eagerly embraced. Prime Minister Kobakhidze has repeatedly claimed that the protests are orchestrated and funded from abroad. “No foreign agent will be able to destabilize the situations in the country,” he declared, referencing new legislation that allows authorities to label NGOs, media, and individuals as “foreign agents.”
Yet, those targeted by the crackdown remain defiant. The seven groups whose funds were frozen vowed to “fight against authoritarian rule and Russian-style laws, using every legal mechanism available, to ensure that the opponents of the democratic and European path enshrined in our constitution cannot achieve their goals.”
Georgia’s democratic backsliding has not gone unnoticed by the international community. Human Rights Watch and other organizations have urged the European Union and its member states to “use all diplomatic and legal tools at their disposal to exert pressure on Georgian officials and members of the judiciary, prosecution and law enforcement, involved in human rights abuses, and prosecutions of human rights defenders and civil society activists.” Despite the government’s suspension of EU accession talks, public support for membership remains strong. Kobakhidze has insisted that joining the EU by 2030 is “realistic and achievable.” However, a European Commission official recently told the Associated Press that “the repressive actions taken by the Georgian authorities are far from anything expected from a candidate country.” The official added, “The EU is ready to consider the return of Georgia to the EU accession path if the authorities take credible steps to reverse democratic backsliding.”
As the weekend’s protests approach, the question remains: who will blink first? Georgia’s civil society is digging in, determined to resist what many see as a slide toward authoritarianism. Whether the government relents—or doubles down—could shape the country’s future for years to come.
