On November 5, 2025, during a protest rally in Tbilisi, the police arrested “Formula” TV company journalist Liza Tsitsishvili. At the time of the arrest, the journalist was performing her professional duties—interviewing rally participants. Video footage recorded by journalists present at the scene shows the police forcibly putting Liza Tsitsishvili into a car. The voices of other journalists can be heard in the video—they tell the police that Liza Tsitsishvili is their colleague; the police reply, “We’ll figure it out.” Liza Tsitsishvili was released ten minutes after her arrest. She says they apologized to her.

This is the second instance in a short period where a journalist is first detained and then released with an apology. On October 24, “Publika” online publication journalist Basti Mgaloblishvili was arrested near her home and released only a few hours later. She was told they had mistaken her for someone else. This is also the second instance where a journalist was detained while performing her professional duties at a rally. Two days before this incident, on November 3, “Media Checker” journalist Ninia Kakabadze was arrested on her way home, despite having a press badge, covering the rally, and having photo and video evidence confirming this.

Since October 19, 2025, after the “Georgian Dream” parliament adopted another set of repressive changes through an accelerated procedure, a total of 12 media representatives have been arrested for participating in, and in some cases covering, the ongoing protest on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. Administrative imprisonment was applied to most of them.

The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics calls the frequent detentions of journalists “show detentions aimed at intimidating journalists” and urges the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) to stop the persecution and harassment of journalists, and to properly inform its employees of journalists’ rights and instruct them to protect and respect those rights before sending them on assignment.