A European court ruling opened the door for a government-friendly owner to take control of the country’s top opposition outlet, the management of which has vowed to fight.
The remote, Muslim-majority region is often seen as separate from the rest of Georgia. But increasingly, Pankisi residents share the same frustration as other Georgians: an overbearing, unresponsive state.
The host expressed what many Georgians – and Russians – feel, but many worried that it could unnecessarily escalate the ongoing crisis between the two countries.
Tbilisi’s Russian expat community disputes Moscow’s narrative of a surge of Russophobia in the country, but some say that the ongoing tensions have put them in a complicated place.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of the interior minister, but he may be too indispensable to the real power in the country: Georgian Dream chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili.
The reform would be a long-demanded shift from a system that allows the ruling party to amass power out of proportion to its support. Protesters were not mollified.