{"id":51482,"date":"2021-02-24T05:46:32","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T05:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=166138"},"modified":"2021-02-24T05:46:32","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T05:46:32","slug":"u-s-lawmakers-call-for-release-of-georgian-opposition-party-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/24\/u-s-lawmakers-call-for-release-of-georgian-opposition-party-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Lawmakers Call For Release Of Georgian Opposition Party Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers said a raid on the headquarters of a major opposition party in Georgia and the arrest of the party\u2019s leader was \u201cprofoundly troubling\u201d and called for his immediate release along with all other political prisoners.<\/p>\n

Two senators and two members of the House of Representatives issued a statement on February 23 after Nika Melia, the leader of the major opposition party in the South Caucasus nation — the United National Movement (ENM) — was detained when police stormed his party’s offices in a dawn raid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Georgian government\u2019s decision to violently raid the United National Movement headquarters to arrest its leader, Nika Melia, and dozens of activists is profoundly troubling,\u201d the statement said.<\/a> \u201cThe corrupt use of Georgia\u2019s law enforcement and judiciary to execute politically motivated actions jeopardizes what remains of Georgia\u2019s democracy and its Euro-Atlantic path.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement was released by Senator Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Senator Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat-New Hampshire), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation; and Representatives Adam Kinzinger (Republican-Illinois) and Gerry Connolly (Democrat-Virginia), co-chairs of the House Georgia Caucus.<\/p>\n

They called for the immediate release of all political prisoners, including Melia and Giorgi Rurua, adding that all political parties in Georgia \u201cmust cease provocations and negotiate a peaceful resolution to this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a dozen people were injured as law enforcement raided the ENM headquarters, spraying what appeared to be chemical irritants into the offices where party leaders, as well as representatives of other opposition parties, had been shielding Melia for several days.<\/p>\n

Melia was arrested over allegations that he incited violence at protests nearly two years ago. He has dismissed as politically motivated.<\/p>\n

International rights group Amnesty International called the heavy use of force to take Melia into custody before a court has heard his appeal against pretrial detention a troubling indicator.<\/p>\n

“Arresting him, let alone violently, before the appeal has been considered shows the Georgian authorities\u2019 flagrant disregard for the rule of law and authority and integrity of the judiciary, and suggests the arrest is politically motivated,” Amnesty said in a statement.<\/a><\/p>\n

Melia’s arrest came days after Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia resigned following a disagreement over whether to take the prominent politician into custody. Gakharia had said that Melia’s arrest was unacceptable if it threatened to fuel political divisions in the Caucasus country of 3.7 million people.<\/p>\n

The political scene in Georgia has been on the brink of crisis since October elections dominated by the Georgian Dream party but that independent monitors say were marred by irregularities.<\/p>\n

With reporting by RFE\/RL\u2019s Georgian Service, Reuters, Apsny, OC Media, Interpressnews, and AFP<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers said a raid on the headquarters of a major opposition party in Georgia and the arrest of the party\u2019s leader was \u201cprofoundly\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[405,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51483,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51482\/revisions\/51483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}