“The brutal force behind the horrors of Belarus, Ukraine y Georgia“, with his methods of hybrid war and their tactics disinformation y propaganda“they approach the heart of europe…we have to employ every mechanism (to counteract it) and we must do it before it is too late.” In the midst of a thunderous ovation of the vast majority of the deputies present in the Strasbourg chamber, There is Dimitradzefriend and colleague of the journalist Mzia Amaglobeliin prison in Georgia, accepted this Tuesday the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Conscience from the European Parliamentwon ex aequo with the Belarusian journalist of Polish origin Andrej Poczobut. This year’s edition of the highest award granted by the European Parliament has rewarded two journalists and activists for democracy in Belarus and Georgia and highlights the difficult moment that the independent journalism and the freedom of expression in the immediate neighborhood of the EU.
Dimitradze read a letter written by Amaglobeli that has had a profound impact on the European Parliament, in particular historical circumstances in which the Union faces alone, without allies outside the continent, the hybrid threats of the totalitarianisms. Reviewing the recent history of his country, he recalled how the historic advances towards democracy in recent decades have been destroyed within “a period” of one year by “a regime” that “has captured” the State” and that serves “the interests of Russia” and has asked the European authorities for decisive action to use “all possible mechanisms to exert pressure on autocratic rulers.” And he has concluded with a warning: if countries like Ukraine or Georgia are “abandoned to their fate in the face of hybrid war or military aggression, it will be an irreparable mistake for which you and we will pay a very high price.”
Significant case
He Georgia case is particularly significant. This small republic of the Caucasus has maintained since dissolution of the USSR important disputes with Moscow, starting with the Abkhazian secession warwhich culminated with the ‘de facto’ independence of the territory in 1992and a new armed conflict in 2008. It is a country with a traditionally hostile population towards the Kremlin and that had made important advances in areas such as freedom of expression, the independence of the judiciary, the protection of citizens and the fight against corruption, to the point of being recognized as a candidate country to join the EU in 2023. In a conversation with EL PERIÓDICO, Dimitradze recalled that propaganda “is perfected” and in each country it takes different forms.
In the case of Georgia, the official narrative used by the party Georgian Dreamwinner of some questioned legislative elections under the shadow of fraud held in 2024, It is precisely the fear of a new war with Russia and the supposed promise to resume the EU membership process later. However, in all this time, with the party in power, sponsored by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a local oligarch with economic interests in Russia, elections have been falsified, independent media are being put under economic pressure and a ‘foreign agent law’ similar to the one in force in Russia has even been approved, already generating a good number of prisoners of conscience.
The award to journalist Poczobutalso an activist in favor of the rights of the Polish minority in Belarus, has acquired special relevance because it coincides precisely with the release of a good number of political prisoners in the prisons of the regime Aleksándr Lukashenko since the controversial elections in the summer of 2020, which unleashed a wave of repression against protesters who denounced “electoral fraud”, including opposition leaders Viktor Babariko y Maria Kolesnikova. Anna Klietlinskaa personal friend of the winner, present these days in Strasbourg, recalled in statements to EL PERIÓDICO the special bond that the journalist maintains with the city of Grodno and its surroundings, where an important part of the Polish minority in this country resides, and the repression of cultural rights carried out by the Minsk regime.
Klietlinska did not want to speculate about the reasons why the dictator Lukashenko considers Poczobut as his “enemy number one“, nor if it is a kind of letter that the Belarusian president keeps in a possible negotiation with Polandthe neighboring country, given the prestige enjoyed by the journalist awarded in this Member State of the EU. He has simply denounced thes confinement conditions in the “hardest” prison in the entire country, the relative frequency in which it is confined in solitary confinement and the “moral principles” that govern his actions. Poczobut “will never” leave the place where he was born nor will he abandon the community that “trusts him,” he concluded.
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