Georgia's New Repression Doesn't Break the Law. It Uses It

Authoritarianism no longer arrives with tanks in the streets or judges openly defying the constitution. Increasingly, it comes wrapped in legal procedure.

Georgia offers a striking example. Over the past few weeks, courts have handed down lengthy prison sentences, journalists have been jailed over Facebook posts, media regulators have begun policing political language, and reports suggest Russian facial-recognition technology is being used to identify anti-government protesters. None of this required suspending the law. Quite the opposite. The law has become the instrument.

That is what makes recent developments in Georgia so significant. The story is no longer about controversial legislation. It is about what happens after the headlines fade, when new powers are quietly absorbed into everyday governance.

That process begins with language. Georgia’s leaders have been redefining political dissent for some time. Recent remarks by Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze show just how firmly that language has taken hold. Both described Georgia’s political crisis through the lens of “political terrorism”. Once dissent is framed as a security threat rather than democratic disagreement, harsher legal measures become easier to justify.

A court sentenced opposition politician Aleko Elisashvili to 13 years in prison after prosecutors reclassified an attack on a courthouse from property damage to attempted terrorism. Former defence minister Bacho Akhalaia received a prison sentence for calling for the government’s removal. Journalist Vakho Sanaia was first fined and then jailed for repeating a Facebook post mocking senior officials. Each case has its own legal basis. Together, they reveal something larger: the gradual expansion of the state’s capacity to punish dissent.

The same logic now extends beyond the courts. Georgia’s media regulator GNCC has ruled that terms such as “oligarch”, “Ivanishvili regime”, and “political prisoners” violate broadcasting standards because they present opinion as fact. A new Interior Ministry unit, created only in June, already monitors social media for insults directed at public officials. According to a recent investigation by AlgorithmWatch, Russian-made facial-recognition software is helping police identify participants in anti-government protests.

Taken individually, none of these measures appears decisive. Collectively, they do something more subtle. They redraw the boundaries of acceptable speech, raise the cost of criticism, and create uncertainty about where the next line will be drawn.

That is why the most important change in Georgia today is not a single law but the emergence of a system. Legislation, courts, regulators, administrative agencies and surveillance technology no longer operate in isolation. They reinforce one another. The law has not disappeared. It has become an instrument of political power.

Political systems are rarely transformed overnight. They change when extraordinary powers become ordinary practice. When courts, regulators, ministries and police begin reinforcing the same political logic. The real story is no longer the legislation itself but its quiet implementation. The headlines came months ago. What matters now is that the machinery has started to run.

If you’re looking for in-depth reporting, analysis, and webinars on the South Caucasus, find my channel on WA.