New York, March 5, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Georgian court decision to proceed with the trial of media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli and keep her in detention, following an altercation with a local police chief.
In a March 4 pretrial hearing, Georgia’s western Batumi City Court rejected motions to release Amaghlobeli, director of independent news outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi, and to dismiss the charge against her of assaulting a police officer. If convicted, Amaghlobeli faces a minimum four-year prison sentence, in a case that is widely seen as disproportionate and in retaliation for her journalism.
“Georgian authorities’ prosecution of media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli is clearly punitive and is all the more jarring given rampant impunity for brutal police attacks on journalists,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should release Amaghlobeli immediately.”
The trial is due to begin on March 18, local journalist Irma Dimitradze told CPJ.
Amaghlobeli has been behind bars since her January 11 arrest, when she began a hunger strike that lasted 38 days.
Amaghlobeli was not covering the protests when she was arrested, but human rights groups calling for her release believe she is being punished for her outlets’ reporting on alleged abuses by authorities, including the police.
The journalist’s lawyer Juba Katamadze told CPJ that Amaghlobeli had been unlawfully detained earlier that evening for putting up a poster on a police station wall to protest her friend’s detention, and that her slapping of Batumi police chief Irakli Dgebuadze did not warrant prosecution under the serious charge of assaulting an officer.
Amaghlobeli’s case comes amid a sharp decline in press freedom in Georgia. Dozens of journalists covering anti-government protests have been violently obstructed or beaten by police. Last week, the government proposed to introduce prison terms for non-compliance with an amended “foreign agent” law and to tighten control over broadcasters.