Another activist in Georgia convicted over insulting Facebook post: doctor Giorgi Akhobadze
Georgia: activist Giorgi Akhobadze sentenced over FB post
On July 24, another person in Georgia was sentenced to administrative detention over a Facebook post containing profanity. Giorgi Akhobadze, a doctor and active participant in the country’s pro-European protests, was sentenced to 25 days in detention.
The ruling was issued by Tbilisi City Court. Giorgi Akhobadze did not attend the hearing.
He was represented by his lawyer, Mikheil Zakareishvili.
A few hours after the ruling, Akhobadze was arrested during a special police operation at his home.
Administrative proceedings against Giorgi Akhobadze were initiated following a complaint by the Interior Ministry’s recently established Department for Monitoring Hate Speech.
Akhobadze was sentenced over a Facebook post in which he used profanity to insult police officers who had testified against him in an earlier criminal case.
In December 2024, Akhobadze was returning home from a pro-European protest (which has continued in Georgia for nearly two years) when he was detained by police. He was searched and charged with purchasing and possessing drugs.
Akhobadze and his lawyers maintained that the drugs had been planted on him during the arrest. After an eight-month trial, he was acquitted and released from the courtroom in August 2025.
The Facebook post that led to his current administrative sentence referred specifically to the police officers whom Akhobadze accuses of planting the drugs.
“I stand by every word of that post,” Akhobadze told TV Pirveli after learning of the court’s decision, repeating the profane insult directed at the police officers.
“I’ll spend 25 days in a cell, get some rest, and if they think I’ll come out thinking differently, they’re very much mistaken,” Akhobadze said before his arrest.
On fines and detention for offensive social media posts
Giorgi Akhobadze is the second person to receive a jail sentence over comments posted on social media.
A few days earlier, on July 22, Tbilisi City Court sentenced well-known journalist and Formula TV host Vakho Sanaia to 14 days of administrative detention.
Sanaia had published a Facebook post containing profane and insulting language directed at senior officials of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
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Administrative cases over opinions expressed in public are being initiated on the basis of reports filed by the Interior Ministry’s new Department for Monitoring Hate Speech, which began operating on June 1.
The department’s mandate is to monitor and proactively identify statements that violate human dignity, are insulting, or incite hatred, where they may constitute an administrative offence.
According to the Georgian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, between June 1 and July 2 the department identified 170 alleged administrative offences and referred 150 cases to court.
Courts have already ruled on 33 of those cases: 31 people were fined and two received verbal warnings. Most of those fined are activists taking part in the mass protests demanding that Georgia return to the path of European integration.
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