Lithuania has sanctioned ten Georgians involved in the detention of ongoing anti-government protesters.
Among those sanctioned by Vilnius are four judges and two prosecutors complicit with the detention of protesters, and the head of Georgia’s Anti-Corruption Bureau, Razhden Kuprashvili, who is responsible for enforcing one of Georgian Dream’s latest restrictive law. Two MPs from the ruling Georgia Dream party - Mariam Lashkhi and Nino Tsilosani - as well as as Sulkhan Tamazashvili, who has served as Chair of the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara since April, and previously headed the Tbilisi Police Department were also sanctioned.
Vilnus had already sanctioned 102 other Georgians in mid-April – including MPs from the ruling party and individuals close to the party, judges, prosecutors, and the owner of the pro-government TV channel Imedi. All sanctioned individuals are barred from entering Lithuania until either 2029 or 2030. In response to Lithuania’s sanctions, Georgian Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said on Monday that the “political elites of the Baltics”, who, according to him, are “largely made up of families of the communist nomenklatura”, were driven by ‘spite’ toward Georgians.
Georgia has been facing sanctions from Western countries due to the process of democratic backsliding that intensified after the victory of pro-Russian Georgia Dream party in 2012, particularly after the government’s suspension of Georgia’s EU membership bid in November 2024. The ruling party’s decision to suspend the EU membership bid as well as controversial parliamentary elections held in October triggered nationwide anti-government protests.
