Resolution on Georgia

Resolution tabled by UNM Georgia at the IDU Summit May 16th, Brussels

WHEREAS Georgia has plunged into a full-fledged constitutional, political, and human rights crisis since the deeply flawed parliamentary elections of 26 October 2024, and the illegitimate Georgian government’s announcement that Georgia would suspend its EU integration process;

WHEREAS peaceful protests are being suppressed with the state-organized terror;

WHEREAS Georgia’s one-party “parliament” created an “investigative commission” to weaponize legal mechanisms to prosecute democratic forces, specifically the United National Movement;

WHEREAS Judge Mikheil Jinjolia used an outdated measure to give Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s 3rd President who has been a political prisoner for over three years, a new 12.5-year sentence.

WHEREAS several countries have imposed bilateral sanctions on Georgian officials; And the European Council has suspended parts of the EU-Georgia visa-facilitation agreement;

The International Democracy Union:

1. Reiterates its solidarity with the people of Georgia for their fight for legitimate democratic rights, a European future, and against Russia’s hybrid warfare;

2. Condemns the actions of Georgian Dream, its continued decline into authoritarianism and drift towards the Russian orbit, and demands the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners; Calls on Georgian Dream to immediately halt all repressive legislation and to end the use of terror against its own citizens, CSOs, independent media, and political opponents;

3. Demands perpetrators of brutality and the excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators be held accountable before the law;

4. Calls on Georgian Dream to set a specific date for new, parliamentary elections, with state institutions, including the Central Election Commission, operating free of political interference;

5. Calls on democratic governments to enforce a clear Georgia policy guided by two key principles: (a) cutting the regime’s financial lifelines, including requests to financial institutions to suspend financial cooperation with the illegitimate government until new parliamentary elections are held; and (b) sanctioning the regime’s ruling elites responsible for democratic backsliding, electoral fraud, human rights violations and the persecution of political opponents;

6. Calls on the democratic governments to immediately introduce coordinated sanctions against Bidzina Ivanishvili and his family, companies, and network of enablers, and to freeze all Ivanishvili’s assets; calls on democratic governments to take measures to cut off Ivanishvili’s Kartu Bank from SWIFT and Visa/MasterCard networks and to impose sectoral sanctions on businesses that support the regime, particularly those in cooper ores and non-ferrous metals

7. Calls on the international community to investigate every single official and police officer who are guilty of violence against protesters and the opposition.