Joe Wilson forms Friends of Georgia group urging governments to reject Ivanishvili's regime
Friends of Georgia against Ivanishvili’s regime
Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, along with 42 other politicians, established an international group called the Friends of Georgia and sent a joint letter to all “free and democratic governments.” The group urged them “not to recognize the illegitimate regime of Bidzina Ivanishvili and to demand free and fair elections in Georgia.”
What does Friends of Georgia’s statement say?
We, transatlantic legislators and former senior policymakers from across the political spectrum, call on all free and democratic governments to demand free and fair elections in Georgia and reject the illegitimate Ivanishvili regime.
We call for a unified policy that no senior meetings should take place between free and democratic governments and this illegitimate regime until it agrees to new, properly monitored and conducted elections.
Additionally, we call for unified sanctions on Ivanishvili’s regime and Georgian Dream officials and propagandists undermining Georgian democracy and sovereignty.
Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party has chosen to ignore the legitimate concerns of the opposition and international monitors about the recent elections, seated a one-party legislature, and unilaterally elected a new president. They have responded with brutality to nightly protests of hundreds of thousands of protestors. The Georgian people demand free and fair elections and we must stand with them.
The joint letter was signed by:
Joe Wilson (Congressman, Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission), Steve Cohen (Congressman, Co-Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission), Richard Hudson (Congressman, Member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission), Mark Wise (Congressman, Member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission), Michal Szczerba (European Parliament Member), Irma Kalnina (Latvian Saeima Deputy, Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Eerik-Niiles Kross (Estonian Parliament Deputy, Vice President of the ALDE Group in PACE), Michael Roth (German Bundestag Member, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Tom Tugendhat (UK Member of Parliament), Marko Mihkelson (Estonian Parliament Deputy, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Radoslaw Fogiel (Polish Sejm Deputy, Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Gustaf Göthberg (Swedish Parliament Member), Urmas Reinsalu (Estonian Parliament Member), and others.
