TBILISI: A court docket in Georgia on Monday sentenced a distinguished opposition chief to eight months in jail, within the newest case critics say is a part of a mounting crackdown on dissent.Georgia has been in political turmoil because the ruling Georgian Dream get together received parliamentary elections final October.Its outcomes have been disputed by the opposition and sparked mass protests which solely intensified after the federal government shelved EU membership talks.Demonstrators accuse the ruling get together of sliding into authoritarianism and steering the nation nearer to Moscow — accusations the federal government denies.Mamuka Khazaradze, chief of the opposition Lelo get together and a staunch authorities critic, was sentenced by a Tbilisi court docket to eight months in jail and barred from holding public workplace for 2 years.He was convicted of refusing to testify earlier than a parliamentary fee investigating alleged abuses beneath jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.Saakashvili has been sentenced to greater than a decade in jail on numerous fees, which rights teams have denounced as politically motivated.Khazaradze, who boycotted the trial, condemned the case as a “political witch hunt,” accusing the federal government of “utilizing its repressive equipment to silence and break the opposition.”“Terror in Georgia: the federal government is intensifying its repressions,” former president and opposition chief Salome Zurabishvili mentioned after the decision.Khazaradze’s jailing comes amid a wave of arrests and prosecutions focusing on opposition figures and rights activists. One other Lelo chief, Badri Japaridze, is due in court docket later Monday.Earlier this month, courts ordered the pre-trial detention of three extra opposition leaders on related fees. They’ve refused to cooperate with the parliamentary inquiry, denouncing it as illegitimate and a software to outlaw dissent.Forward of final yr’s disputed elections, Georgian Dream introduced plan to ban all main opposition events.
