The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced Vakho Sanaia, host of the main news broadcast at the Formula TV channel, to 30 days of administrative detention. The journalist was not present at the court hearing.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs charged Sanaia with insulting individuals holding political office over three posts published on social media.
This is the third administrative case initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs against Vakho Sanaia over social media posts. The journalist had previously been sentenced to 14 days of administrative detention and ordered to pay a fine of 6,000 GEL (Georgian lari).
On October 1, Vakho Sanaia told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Georgian Service that three Facebook posts had served as the grounds for opening the administrative case against him:
- July 22, minutes before his administrative arrest: “For 14 days, don’t call Shalva [Papuashvili] and Lado [Bozhadze] d**ks, and when I get out, I’ll deal with this matter myself”;
- August 5: “When I wrote about Papuashvili and Bozhadze telling people not to call them d**ks, they arrested me…”;
- A video address posted on September 24 headlined “Responding to Shalva Papuashvili’s Me*lenburgism.”
“The Ministry of Internal Affairs has one single function—to enforce censorship on social media. Fines and detentions of socially active citizens are a signal to the rest. They understand perfectly well that arrest will not force me to renounce freedom of expression: I will continue to write what I consider necessary and will consistently voice my position,” Vakho Sanaia stated at the time.
The journalist was charged with violating Article 173¹⁶ of the Code of Administrative Offences of Georgia, which carries a fine of 2,500 to 6,000 GEL or administrative detention for a term of 5 to 60 days for insulting a person holding political office.