Georgian opposition leader jailed amid crackdown

TBILISI: A court docket in Georgia on Monday sentenced a distinguished opposition leader to eight months in jail, within the newest case critics say is a part of a mounting crackdown on dissent.Georgia has been in political turmoil for the reason that ruling Georgian Dream get together received parliamentary elections final October.Its outcomes had been disputed by the opposition and sparked mass protests which solely intensified after the federal government shelved EU membership talks.Demonstrators accuse the ruling get together of sliding into authoritarianism and steering the nation nearer to Moscow — accusations the federal government denies.Mamuka Khazaradze, leader of the opposition Lelo get together and a staunch authorities critic, was sentenced by a Tbilisi court docket to eight months in jail and barred from holding public workplace for 2 years.He was convicted of refusing to testify earlier than a parliamentary fee investigating alleged abuses below jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.Saakashvili has been sentenced to greater than a decade in jail on varied prices, which rights teams have denounced as politically motivated.Khazaradze, who boycotted the trial, condemned the case as a “political witch hunt,” accusing the federal government of “using its repressive machinery to silence and break the opposition.”“Terror in Georgia: the government is intensifying its repressions,” former president and opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili stated after the decision.Khazaradze’s jailing comes amid a wave of arrests and prosecutions concentrating on opposition figures and rights activists. Another Lelo leader, Badri Japaridze, is due in court docket later Monday.Earlier this month, courts ordered the pre-trial detention of three extra opposition leaders on related prices. They have refused to cooperate with the parliamentary inquiry, denouncing it as illegitimate and a device to outlaw dissent.Ahead of final 12 months’s disputed elections, Georgian Dream introduced plan to ban all main opposition events.