The “Opposition Alliance,” a coalition of nine parties, issued a statement on Mother Tongue Day, highlighting that the Georgian language continues to face persecution in the occupied city of Gali.
The government’s opponents point out that Russia, utilizing a “puppet occupation regime”—the de facto authorities in occupied Abkhazia—is attempting to suppress the ethnic Georgian population living in Gali by restricting, and in many cases completely banning, education in their native language.
The Alliance states that Georgians in Gali are not provided the opportunity to receive an education in their native language in schools or kindergartens. The distribution of Georgian-language literature is strictly limited, and teenagers effectively have no opportunity to prepare for entrance exams in Georgian.
“The Ivanishvili regime [referring to Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party] is doing nothing to protect Georgian citizens living in Gali. For example, now that electricity prices have risen for Georgian citizens, it appears that the electricity generated by the Enguri HPP (Hydroelectric Power Plant) goes almost entirely and practically for free to the occupation regime—whereas it would have been possible to set the improvement of the status of the Georgian language in Abkhazia and the overall legal status of ethnic Georgians in Gali as a precondition for these supplies.
Instead, we hear hollow toasts about how they ‘protect’ Georgian identity from the West.
As outrageous as it may sound, the regime’s inaction is consistent and logical, because the Ivanishvili regime is a tool of Russia’s hybrid warfare, and Moscow has a very clearly formulated dark objective—the Kremlin’s task is to undermine the Georgian state, the Georgian people, and the Georgian language.
This is further evidenced by the fact that as a result of the Russian regime’s policy of capitulation, the situation of Georgians living in Gali has not improved one bit.
To truly protect Georgia’s state independence, the Georgian language, and identity, as well as to save the Georgian people from the Russian swamp of backwardness and poverty, it is necessary to carry out a peaceful dismantling of Ivanishvili’s Russian regime, and a national, democratic government must come to power, whose goal will be to serve the vital interests of Georgian citizens,” the statement reads.
