The Georgian Interior Ministry headquarters in Tbilisi, February 2, 2010.
(Berlin, September 18, 2026) – Georgian authorities are using vague administrative offenses to jail or heavily fine people for online speech, deepening the government’s crackdown on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said today.
Since June 2026, a new Ministry of Internal Affairs unit has monitored social media and referred hundreds of posts to courts to be tried for speech-related charges, such as insult or profanity. In July, courts sentenced a journalist and an activist to 14 and 25 days of detention, respectively, for online statements deemed insulting, and in September, authorities opened proceedings against a blogger over a Facebook comment deemed profane.
“Statements can be crude or disrespectful, but that does not justify jailing people for what they say about public officials,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Detention or substantial fines for nonviolent expression under vague rules, combined with monitoring social media, pose a serious threat to free expression in Georgia.”
On July 22, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Vakho Sanaia, a journalist and anchor at Formula TV, a broadcaster critical of the government, to 14 days in detention over a Facebook post referring to Shalva Papuashvili, the parliament speaker, and Vladimir Bozhadze, a lawmaker, in terms deemed disparaging.
Sanaia had been fined 6,000 Georgian lari (approximately US$2,200) 12 days earlier in a separate case involving Facebook posts about the same officials. Following that decision, Sanaia posted: “I wrote a post saying, ‘Don’t call Papuashvili and Bozhadze d—ks,’ and I was fined 6,000 lari for that. Well, I don’t know then—I guess call them that.”
A Ministry of Internal Affairs representative said the authorities sought detention because Sanaia had d
