On October 1, exactly five years after former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili returned to his homeland and was arrested, the United National Movement party held a rally in Tbilisi’s Rike Park demanding the release of its leader.
At the rally, which gathered several dozen people, party leaders delivered speeches, including Irakli Pavlenishvili, Ana Tsitlidze, Petre Tsiskarishvili, Khatia Dekanoidze, Lasha Parulava, and others.
“Mr. [Donald] Trump, the Georgian people demand the adoption of the MEGOBARI Act,” read one of the banners featuring images of Saakashvili and the U.S. president, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Georgian Service.
One of the UNM leaders, Lasha Parulava, stated that holding the rally in Rike Park was deeply symbolic because “Mikheil Saakashvili returned this area to the people, and Bidzina Ivanishvili gave it back to the oligarchs.”
Another party leader, Ana Tsitlidze, declared that “Mikheil Saakashvili has been held captive by the Russian regime for exactly five years”:
“For 14 years, the Russian regime has been trying to destroy everything associated with the name of Mikheil Saakashvili and the United National Movement, attempting to trample this party, as well as the achievements and legacy of the Rose Revolution,” she emphasized.
Irakli Pavlenishvili, head of the party’s interim governing council, stated that the UNM’s rule was “not the ‘bloody nine years’, not a time of violence or wrongdoing, but nine years of creation, restoring order, and the country’s dynamic development.”
Ana Tsitlidze added that “the only person Ivanishvili fears is Saakashvili,” and “only he has the power to crush the oligarchic regime.”
She listed fellow party figures, identifying them as political prisoners: “Mikheil Saakashvili, Levan Khabeishvili, Irakli Nadiradze, Giorgi Baramidze, Bacho Akhalaia, Zviad Kuprava, and many others.”
According to Tsitlidze, despite the repression, “we remain the most uncorrupted, principled, and genuinely national Georgian party, which will certainly prevail and continue the era of nine years of creation in Georgia.”
As a reminder, Mikheil Saakashvili, who left Georgia in 2013, secretly returned to his homeland a few days before the 2021 municipal elections. On the eve of the vote, on October 1, he was detained by police officers.
A number of opposition forces, human rights NGOs, and the European Parliament officially recognize Saakashvili as a political prisoner. Based on verdicts delivered in several concluded trials, Saakashvili is scheduled to remain in custody until April 1, 2034.
In addition to the cases already adjudicated, the politician is implicated in a “sabotage case” involving eight opposition figures, with the investigation proceeding under the article concerning calls for the violent overthrow of state power.
Court proceedings also remain underway in the case concerning the dispersal of the November 7, 2007 demonstration, in which the former president is charged alongside former high-ranking officials: Gigi Ugulava, Davit Kezerashvili, and Zurab Adeishvili.
It should also be noted that Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs denied authorization for the United National Movement rally. The ministry explained that the Tbilisi City Hall had already initiated preparatory work in that area for the “Tbilisoba” city day celebrations, scheduled for October 3–4;
The ministry urged the event’s organizers to change the time and location of the rally. Twenty minutes before the demonstration began, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a warning to the protesters “not to disrupt preparations for the ‘Tbilisoba-2026’ festivities” and to refrain from approaching the “Rike Pitchers” complex due to “elevated security risks.” Nonetheless, the rally proceeded peacefully at the open amphitheater venue in Rike Park.
