Georgian Parliament Speaker: EU’s support for Elene Khoshtaria equates to endorsing politically motivated violence

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday strongly criticised the European Commission for expressing support for opposition politician Elene Khoshtaria, calling it a justification of politically motivated violence and crime.

In his remarks, Papuashvili argued that Khoshtaria’s recent actions were aimed at undermining democratic elections and preventing citizens from expressing their will through voting.

“Elene Khoshtaria is a person, who refuses to participate in the democratic process and has a declared goal of preventing citizens from expressing their will through elections and disrupting democratic elections. Of course, when we see that the spokesperson of one of the EU institutions expresses support for such a person, this is nothing other than giving a green light to violence. In fact, what we heard from the spokesperson is the justification of politically motivated violence and crime and giving a green light to politically motivated crime”, Papuashvili said.

The Speaker further added that when EU officials publicly support such individuals, they signal approval for unlawful behaviour and erode democratic principles.

“From now on, all such politically motivated crimes or violence that come from these groups - the responsibility for all of this must be borne by the relevant EU institutions in Brussels, including the EU Embassy, which to this day does not distance itself from violence, including from those violent actors it funds itself”, he continued.

He further went on to accuse the EU of funding a person who publicly called for politically motivated murder and mocked the death of Georgian politician Levan Gachechiladze, arguing that Brussels’ failure to respond to this is deeply disrespectful to the Georgian people.

“Let me remind you, it recently became known that the EU Embassy funds a person who calls for politically motivated murder and mocks the death of Levan Gachechiladze, one of the prominent politicians in Georgia’s modern history. The EU Embassy funds such a person and does not even deem the Georgian people worthy of expressing regret or saying a single word about whether this fits into European or even galactic values, when a person calls for politically motivated murder and it is funded with EU citizens’ money. It is unfortunate, but Brussels has brought itself to this situation, where it equates itself with violence and politically motivated crime”, Papuashvili concluded.

The Georgian Interior Ministry on Monday arrested the opposition leader Elene Khoshtaria for damaging campaign banners of Kakha Kaladze, the ruling Georgian Dream party's candidate for Tbilisi Mayor.