Over the past year, press freedom violations in Georgia have reached unprecedented levels, according to data from the Center for Media, Information and Social Studies (CMIS), released in partnership with Reporters Without Borders (RSF). RSF condemns this deliberate strategy of intimidation, harassment, and criminalization of independent journalism, and calls on the authorities to put a stop to this authoritarian drift immediately.

On the evening of Saturday 22 November, TV Pirveli journalist Giorgi Mamniashvili disappeared after covering a demonstration on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi; several hours later, the police confirmed his detention. His lawyer reports that he was subjected to degrading treatment at the police station — handcuffed with his hands behind his back, forced to strip naked and perform squats — and was deprived, during the first hours, of his right to contact a lawyer. Two weeks earlier, Formula TV journalist Liza Tsitsishvili and Mediachecker.ge reporter Ninia Kakabadze were also detained after covering a protest march. These swift arrests illustrate what Georgia has become for independent media outlets: a country where they are the targets of nearly fifty cases of abuse per month.

Since the pro‑European movement began on 28 November 2024 — after the Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the suspension of accession talks with the European Union (EU), press freedom in Georgia has sharply deteriorated. Between October 2024 and 2025 — which saw the contested victory of the Georgian Dream party in parliamentary election marked by fraud — 600 attacks against the press were documented: including assaults, arbitrary fines, arrests, threats, suspensions of accreditation and more. This surge in abuse signals an unprecedented hardening and accelerated tightening of political control as Georgian authorities stray ever further from European democratic standards.

“The Georgian authorities are pursuing a policy of intimidation, harassment, and the criminalisation of independent journalism. RSF calls on the government to end the physical violence, threats and abusive prosecutions, to investigate these abuses, and to restore suspended accreditations immediately. Georgia cannot credibly claim to be moving closer to the EU while trampling on press freedom, the rule of law and pluralism," said Jeanne Cavelier, Head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

Television channels are among the most violently targeted media outlets, particularly TV Pirveli, whose crews have been attacked more than 80 times in the past year. Several newsrooms have documented police tactics aimed at disabling cameras or preventing journalists from setting up their equipment in elevated places to film police operations.

The online media outlets, Publika — which focuses on public policy — and Batumelebi, co‑founded by the imprisoned journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli, are among the most frequent targets of repression. Fiscal and administrative inspections, police pressure on reporters, and smear campaigns orchestrated by pro‑government officials… the Batumelebi newsroom — based in Batumi, on the Black Sea coast — continues to face particular pressure from local and national authorities. Mzia Amaghlobeli remains arbitrarily detained following an unfair trial and a two‑year prison sentence upheld on appeal on 18 November 2025, raising fears around the growing use of legal proceedings against media professionals.