Civil activist Giorgi Melitauri was fined GEL 2,000 on the grounds of allegedly posting an insulting comment on Facebook in connection with his friend.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs accused Giorgi Melitauri, under Article 166 of the Code of Administrative Offences, of verbal abuse in a public space, classified as petty hooliganism. The case concerns a comment Melitauri posted under one of Mtavari TV’s Facebook posts. The post concerned an attack on Melitauri’s friend, photographer Levan Zazadze. Melitauri’s comment was directed at the person who had attacked Zazadze and included profanity. The MIA’s Division for Combating Hate Speech treated the comment as an insult against his friend and drew up an administrative offence report.
At the court hearing, the MIA representative stated that it did not matter at whom the insult was directed. “They accused me of insulting [Levan Zazadze], but when they realized that the profanity was directed not at Levan Zazadze, but at his attacker, they said that it did not matter whether I insulted anyone or not; what mattered was that I had used obscene language in a public space,” Melitauri told Publika.
Administrative proceedings against citizens over opinions expressed in the public space are being initiated on the basis of administrative offence reports drawn up by the newly created MIA Division for Combating Hate Speech. The new division has been operating within the MIA since 1 June. Its mandate is to monitor and proactively identify publicly disseminated statements that are degrading to human dignity, insulting, or contain hate speech, where such statements may contain elements of an administrative offence.
According to Radio Liberty, between 1 June and 2 July, after the division became operational, it identified 170 alleged administrative offences, of which 150 cases have already been submitted to court. Decisions have already been delivered in 33 of these 150 cases: 31 individuals were fined, while two individuals received verbal warnings. Most of those fined are citizens and activists.
