Mikheil Saakashvili - Criticism

Criticism

On 27 March 2006 the government announced that it had prevented a nation-wide prison riot plotted by criminal kingpins. The police operation ended with the deaths of 7 inmates and at least 17 injuries. While the Parliamentary opposition has cast doubts over the official version and demanded an independent investigation, the ruling party has been able to vote down such initiatives.

In November 2007, Saakashvili came under criticism for dispersing with rubber bullets and tear gas hundreds of protesters who were blocking Tbilisi's main transport artery, Rustaveli Avenue. The demonstrations started as protest against the arrest of two well-known sportsmen accused in blackmail but soon grew into a demonstration against the central authorities. 25 people were arrested including 5 members of opposition parties. In November 2007 another series of demonstrations forced Saakashvili to set the pre-scheduled presidential elections for 5 January 2008.

The deceased Georgian businessman Arkady Patarkatsishvili claimed that pressure had been exerted on his financial interests after Imedi Television broadcast several accusations against officials. On 25 October 2007, former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili accused the president of planning Patarkatsishvili's murder. Okruashvili was detained two days later on charges of extortion, money laundering, and abuse of office. However, in a videotaped confession released by the General Prosecutor's Office on 8 October 2007, in which Okruashvili pleaded guilty to large-scale bribery through extortion and negligence while serving as minister, he retracted his accusations against the president and said that he did so to gain some political benefit and that Badri Patarkatsishvili told him to do so. Okruashvili's lawyer and other opposition leaders said his retraction had been made under duress.

Patarkatsishvili's opposition television station Imedi was shut down in November 2007 after the authorities have accused it of complicity with the plot to overthrow the elected government. The channel resumed broadcasts a few weeks following the incident, but did not cover news or talk shows until after the election. Subsequently the station was sold on to supporters of the Saakashvili government and some Georgian journalists have called for the station to be handed back.

In the 2010 study Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War, political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way cite various media and human rights reports to describe Saakashvili's Georgia as a "competitive authoritarian" (i.e., a formally democratic but essentially non-democratic) state.

In September, 2012, during Saakashvili's presidency, a video taken inside Tbilisi prison Gldani #8 showing prisoners being beaten and sodomized was released to the public.
Georgian Minister of Correction, Probation and Legal Assistance, Khatuna Kalmakhelidze was forced to resign over the scandal. Human rights organizations including the U.N. Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement expressing outrage over the video and The U.N. Office for the High Commissioner.