Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili made discrediting statements about Eka Gigauri, Executive Director of Transparency International Georgia. The statements were later disseminated as cards on the Facebook page of the pro-government TV channel Imedi.

According to Shalva Papuashvili, “no one asks Eka Gigauri anything” and she “carries out tasks given to her from outside.” Papuashvili also said: “If you find out who funds this person, you will find out who is hostile to Georgia.”

Irakli Kobakhidze referred to Eka Gigauri’s organization as a “party appendage” and stated that it “was never either non-governmental or an NGO.”

In addition, another statement by Kobakhidze concerned the discrediting of the ongoing protest. He referred to the protest as the “so-called protest of the radicals’ agency” and described its continuation as “sectarianism.”

Such statements by high-ranking officials and their dissemination as cards repeat a narrative that portrays critical civil society organizations and protest participants not as independent civic actors, but as groups acting under external influence or in line with party interests. Such messages can be assessed as part of the ongoing discrediting campaign against Eka Gigauri, Transparency International Georgia, and participants of the pro-European protest.