The owner of Georgia's most popular pro-opposition television channel was sentenced Monday to three and a half years in prison, a case he says is aimed at silencing the media.
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Nika Gvaramia, presenter and owner of the Mtavari TV channel, was found by a Tbilisi court magistrate guilty of harming the financial interests of a TV channel he previously ran.
Nika Gvaramia was also the lawyer for former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (2004-2013), who is serving a six-year prison sentence for abuse of power which he describes as political.
The lawyer for the boss of Mtavari TV, Dito Sadzaglichvili, considered that the judgment was illegal and declared that his client was subject to "
political detention
".
“
Political repressions are underway in Georgia
,” he told AFP.
“
In democratic countries,
The Georgian Dream
Several prominent figures and officials from several independent Georgian TV stations have long accused the ruling Georgian Dream coalition of using the judicial system to stifle opposition.
Human rights defenders have also expressed concern about press freedom in Georgia, saying the managers and owners of almost all independent television stations are under investigation.
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Georgian human rights envoy Nino Lomjaria and the NGO Transparency International said on Sunday they had reviewed Nika Gvaramia's case and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
In October 2015, Nika Gvaramia said that a government official had threatened to release videos recorded without his knowledge on his "
private life
", in order to force him to leave the world of the media.
From 2007 to 2009, Nika Gvaramia held several positions in Mikheil Saakashvili's cabinet, overseeing his anti-corruption crusade.
