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Lazare Grigoriadis

Lazare Grigoriadis

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Giorgi Shanidze. Image via NetGazeti.
Freedom of Speech

Foreign agent law protestor sentenced to four years in prison

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Tbilisi City Court has sentenced foreign agent law protester Giorgi Shanidze to four years in prison, months after his arrest at a mass protest against the controversial foreign agent law. Shanidze was arrested on 9 May on charges of damaging a surveillance camera in the vicinity of the Georgian parliament during the rally. He was later additionally charged with growing cannabis. According to local media, Shanidze was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for damaging the surveillance

Lazare Grigoriadis speaking to journalists on his release. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media
Georgia

Georgian foreign agent law protester freed after year in prison

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Lazare Grigoriadis, convicted of violence during the anti-government protests in Tbilisi in March last year, has been released from prison following President Salome Zourabichvili’s pardon.  Zourabichvili announced her decision hours after Grigoriadis was sentenced on 12 April to nine years in prison on charges of arson and attacking a police officer during the March 2023 protests against Georgia’s draft foreign agent law. His release from Tbilisi’s Gldani prison comes as the ruling party are

Lazare Grigoriadis. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.
Georgia

Georgian President to pardon foreign agent law protester Lazare Grigoriadis

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Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has announced she will pardon Georgian foreign agent law protester Lazare Grigoriadis, after he was sentenced to nine years in prison earlier today. Lazare Grigoriadis, 22, was convicted on Friday morning of attacking a police officer and arson during the March 2023 protests against Georgia’s draft foreign agent law. His conviction comes as the ruling party are once again attempting to bring the controversial legislation back. In an interview with TV P

Lazare Grigoriadis in court in November 2023. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.
Georgia

Georgian foreign agent law protester Lazare Grigoriadis sentenced to nine years

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Tbilisi City Court has convicted Lazare Grigoriadis of attacking a police officer and arson during the March 2023 protests against Georgia’s draft foreign agent law, sentencing him to nine years in prison. Lazare Grigoriadis, 22, was the first person to be detained for their participation in the foreign agent law protests in March 2023, with ruling Georgian Dream party figures and pro-government media commenting on his appearance and ‘orientation’ in the months that followed his arrest. His se

Mamuka Mdinaradze. Screengrab via Facebook.
2024 Georgian Parliamentary Elections

Georgian Dream announces draft law against ‘pseudo-liberal ideology’

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The ruling Georgian Dream party has announced that it will prepare a draft law to ‘protect’ society from ‘pseudo-liberal ideology’, which appears to be aimed at countering queer rights advocacy. The chair of the party’s parliamentary faction, Mamuka Mdinaradze, stated at a briefing on Thursday that the ruling team would take two weeks to work on the bill before presenting it to parliament.  Mdinaradze stated that while human rights in Georgia were ‘protected at a high level, regardless of

Beka Grigoriadis protesting outside the parliament in Georgia in July 2023. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.
Georgia

Georgian foreign agent law protester’s father self-harms in court

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The father of Georgian foreign agent law protester Lazare Grigoriadis, who is on trial for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail, has cut open his stomach in court. Beka Grigoriadis was standing trial over a physical altercation with a security guard at a restaurant in Tbilisi, for which he was remanded to eight days in detention. Grigoriadis maintained the government targeted him with ‘provocations’ to stop him from supporting his son. Footage apparently filmed by his brother, Kakhi Grigori

Protesters in a tent outside parliament. 5 October 2023. Image: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media
Freedom of Assembly

Podcast | No tents, no stages, no signs: Georgian Dream’s war on protest

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Georgia’s Parliament adopted on Thursday evening amendments to the law on protests that would ban the erection of temporary structures – tents and stages included. Critics of the amendments have argued that the new regulations would stifle freedom of assembly in the country and have already begun dubbing it the ‘new Russian law’ in reference to the foreign agents law, which triggered a wave of massive protests that forced the ruling Georgian Dream party to drop it. This we

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