Amnesty International published a 500-day reckoning on Monday on Georgia’s protest movement, concluding that the ruling Georgian Dream party has converted law, police and courts into a coordinated system designed to silence dissent. The report, Anatomy of Repression: Georgia’s 500 Days of Protest, Crackdown and Resilience, is Amnesty’s first comprehensive inventory of the human cost since demonstrations began in late 2024.
Since the unrest began, thousands have been detained and fined, hundreds subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, and more than 150 imprisoned after politically driven trials, the report said. Protesters, Amnesty wrote, have “continued to return to the streets, refusing to abandon their demands for rights, dignity and a better future” through a campaign triggered by the ruling party’s announcement of a four-year “pause” in EU accession talks in November 2024.
- Continuous daily protests in Tbilisi and other major cities since late October 2024
- More than 150 people imprisoned after unfair trials
- 78-88% of those detained by security forces in 2024-2025 reported ill-treatment
- 300+ protesters detained in November 2024 alone, with 80+ hospitalised
- 1 set of police charges filed, in May 2026
Anatomy of a Coordinated Crackdown
The report, dated 15 June 2026 and indexed EUR 56/1115/2026, was compiled through months of field interviews, document review and consultation with Georgian civil society. It names four pillars of the crackdown: disinformation that turns critics into enemies, restrictive laws that criminalise dissent, policing that makes protest physically dangerous, and courts that “give repression the veneer of legality.” The publication lands deep into a movement that began on the streets of Tbilisi and spread to other major cities, and the underlying Anatomy of Repression, the 500-day report, is the most detailed to date.
Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty’s deputy director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, called Georgia’s experience a “cautionary tale of how governments can rapidly turn state institutions into potent tools of repression for the sake of entrenching their own power.” In a statement accompanying the release, he added: “Georgia’s authorities have weaponized disinformation, abusive legislation, police abuses and injustice in courts to shield against potential threats to their power.” Civil society, he said, is “considered a national enemy,” and victims of police violence are “denied justice and instead persecuted.”
The report draws on testimony from journalists, civil society leaders, detainees and the Public Defender’s office. It catalogues a pattern in which a single protest can end in arrest, beatings, a politicised trial and a financial penalty large enough to break a household. Amnesty’s recommendations are directed at the Georgian state, parliament, the judiciary and international and private actors.
The international community must “recognize and respond to this deliberate system of repression with the urgency it demands,” the report concludes.
Georgia’s experience over the last three years is a cautionary tale of how governments can rapidly turn state institutions into potent tools of repression for the sake of entrenching their own power.
Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia
The Three Laws That Built the System
Three named statutes form the spine of the crackdown, the report says. The Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, adopted in May 2024, required organisations receiving foreign funding and engaged in broadly defined “political activities” to register and submit to intrusive monitoring. The Foreign Agents Registration Act, passed in April 2025, extended the regime with criminal exposure and harsher reporting.
A third package, amendments to the Law on Grants, the Administrative Offences Code and the Law on Political Associations, added the asset-freeze and criminal-investigation risk that has since ensnared NGOs and activists. Tamta Mikeladze, director of the Social Justice Centre, told Amnesty that her organisation’s accounts were frozen in this sweep: “They killed our organization, our institution, and it was a catastrophe, to be frank. At this stage, we are continuing our work on a voluntary basis.” Dozens of civil society organisations have been forced to downsize, suspend activities or operate in survival mode, the report found.
Each law was a step in the same direction. The Transparency law was the match that lit the protests: when it was reintroduced in April 2024, mass demonstrations followed, and police responded with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. By December 2025, a further round of amendments to the Law on Assemblies and Manifestations allowed authorities to fine demonstrators for “merely standing on a sidewalk near parliament,” per January 2026 findings on sidewalk protest detentions.
- Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, May 2024: required civil society receiving foreign funding to register and submit to monitoring
- Foreign Agents Registration Act, April 2025: extended the regime with criminal exposure and intrusive reporting
- Amendments to the Law on Grants, the Administrative Offences Code and the Law on Political Associations: added asset-freeze and criminal-investigation risk
Behind the Casualties, One Named Face
Aleksandre Tirkia was 22 when a tear gas canister struck him in the head during a protest in Tbilisi on 3 December 2024. He suffered multiple skull and facial fractures, brain injury and severe damage to his left eye, Amnesty’s report said. The canister was fired at close range from behind a police cordon that sealed off the side alleys, according to Tirkia’s account, as documented in the December 2025 monitoring report on the Tirkia case. “I tried to leave but we were surrounded. We were blocked on all sides, front, back, even the side alleys,” he told Amnesty.
Tirkia is one of an estimated hundreds of seriously injured protesters. Data from the Public Defender’s office shows that 78 to 88 percent of those detained by security forces reported ill-treatment in detention in 2024 and 2025. In November 2024 alone, more than 300 detained protesters reported serious physical abuse, with over 80 requiring hospital treatment for concussions, fractures and broken bones.
Police also deployed gender-based violence against women involved in the protests, including sexist insults, threats of sexual violence and degrading strip searches. Amnesty documented the pattern despite a government pledge in mid-2025 to end full-body searches.
Mariam Nikuradze, a journalist, told Amnesty: “It has never been so dangerous to be a journalist in Georgia. The challenges come from every direction: physical security, restrictive legislation, digital security, criminal prosecution, government hate campaigns, financial instability and the shrinking space for our work.” Independent media outlets have been targeted alongside civil society and opposition parties, the report said, with harassment, regulatory pressure and asset freezes all in use.
What the Courts Did to Protesters
Courts were the lever that turned street protests into lasting ruin, the report found. Judges imposed fines, administrative detention and prison sentences in protest-related cases, with more than 150 people “unjustly detained” at the time of the report. In December 2024, protesters were fined GEL 5,000 (about US$1,800) for standing in the road during a protest, more than twice the national average monthly salary. By December 2025, the same courts were fining people for standing on sidewalks. Judges, the report said, “arbitrarily imposed ruinous fines, administrative detention and prison sentences in protest-related cases following unfair trials.”
Some penalties have bankrupted participants. Teacher and activist Gota Chanturia faces fines totalling around US$130,000 simply for taking part in peaceful protests. “There is no way I can ever repay them. It is simply their way of terror and attempting to stop us from protesting,” Chanturia told Amnesty. Her bank accounts are frozen, she said, and she cannot earn a living.
The legislative machinery keeps producing new categories of offence. Amendments adopted in October 2025 made it punishable by up to 15 days’ detention (20 days for organisers) to cover one’s face, set up tents or block a road during a protest; repeat offences carry up to two years in prison. The 12 December 2025 amendments to the Law on Assemblies and Manifestations added a parallel penalty regime for noncompliance with police instructions at protests, with up to 15 days’ detention or, for organisers, up to 20 days. A first repeat offence can be charged criminally and carry a prison sentence of up to one year. The pattern, the report said, gives repression “the veneer of legality” while criminalising conduct that was once lawful protest.
| Penalty | Amount or Term | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Fine for blocking a road (December 2024) | GEL 5,000 (about US$1,800) | More than twice the national average monthly salary |
| Gota Chanturia’s accumulated fines | Around US$130,000 | From peaceful protest participation alone |
| Detention for face-covering, tents or road-blocking (October 2025) | Up to 15 days (20 for organisers) | Repeat offences: up to two years in prison |
| Sidewalk protest under December 12, 2025 amendments | Up to 15 days detention | Repeat offence criminal, up to one year |
Police Impunity, One Exception
For most of the 500 days, no police officer or pro-government assailant had been held accountable for violence against protesters, the report said. Hundreds of demonstrators appeared before judges with visible injuries and raised allegations of torture or other ill-treatment, to no effect. Amnesty’s report names no case of police accountability through 2024 or 2025.
That changed on 7 May 2026, when prosecutors brought May 2026 charges against five police officers. The defendants are four riot police officers (three former, one current) and one serving Security Police Department official, named in connection with attacks on journalist Guram Rogava, politician Levan Khabeishvili and protester Zviad Maisashvili. The charges carry a potential five-to-eight-year prison term. The announcement came days after Formula TV, a local broadcaster, published an investigation that identified the initials of the officer accused of attacking the station’s former reporter Rogava. “It is important that an investigation be conducted not only against the perpetrators, but also against those who gave the orders,” Rogava told Formula TV.
The International Reckoning
The Amnesty report lands alongside several other international actions. On 29 January 2026, 23 OSCE participating States invoked the Moscow Mechanism over alleged human rights violations in Georgia, opening a formal inquiry into the crackdown. In April 2025, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on four Georgian officials deemed responsible for serious human rights violations. Civil society groups have called for a coordinated EU response, including asset freezes and visa bans on officials tied to the repression.
Krivosheev’s statement framed the crackdown in geopolitical terms. Protesters were demanding the European path that Georgian Dream has, in his telling, betrayed, and the international community must respond with the urgency the situation demands, the report said. The recommendations include support for documentation, investigation and prosecution of human rights violations at the domestic, regional and international levels.
Krivosheev’s statement also called for repeal of the laws that “unduly restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” release of all those detained solely for peaceful protest, fair retrials in outstanding protest-related cases, and prompt independent investigations into every allegation of torture, ill-treatment and unlawful use of force by law enforcement officials and state-aligned groups. “Human rights and civic space have seen one of the deepest setbacks since Georgia regained independence,” he said. This moment, the report makes clear, is a milestone, not a destination.
