Matani Inhabitants Protest against the Illegal Arrest of the Villagers

Matani Inhabitants Protest against the Illegal Arrest of the Villagers

On the 28th of March, the inhabitants of the village of Matani gathered in front of the Akhmeta administration. They protested against the arrest of Gela Niniashvili and demanded that the police free the illegally detained prisoner.

On March 27th, Gela Niniashvili was summoned to be questioned. After the interrogation he was detained. The reason given for the arrest was that Niniashvili illegally operated a bakery on the site of the Matani Culture Centre.

According to lawyer Aleksi Shoshiashvili, Gela Niniashvili was illegally detained because he has an official license to operate the bakery. The lawyer also stated that the only motive for the arrest was Niniashvili’s friendship with businessman Luka Ramazashvili. “Other friends of Ramazashvili; Shengeli Mgelauridze, Temur Antaidze and Gocha Tsitelauri, have been also arrested with absurd accusations. Mgelauridze and Tsitelauri were released; however, Temur Antadze still remains in detention. It should be mentioned that another friend of Ramazashvili - Enri Kobakhidze, a director of the ‘Tanamgzavri’ TV Company also faced an arrest attempt in February. Furthermore, his house was thoroughly searched in order to find something compromising about him”, Shoshiashvili told the Human Rights Information and Documentation Centre.

The protesters were sure that Gela Niniashvili’s arrest was linked with Luka Ramazashvili, who was detained two months earlier. The inhabitants of Matani claim that “the police added Gela Niniashvili to the ‘black list’ because of his relationship with Ramazashvili”.

Luka Ramazashvili was accused of stealing thirteen large building blocks. In one of the subsequent TV interviews, Gela Niniashvili stated that he in fact owned those building materials. “The aforementioned building blocks officially belong to me. I bought the building, along with all those materials. I cannot understand why Luka Ramazashvili has been arrested”, he added.

Since the protestors did not manage to get a response from the Akhmeta Regional Authority, they moved to the Regional Police Department. They demanded to have a meeting with the Chief of Police. They also wanted to hear the real reasons why Gela Niniashvili was arrested.

Despite a noisy protest neither the Chief of the Akhmeta Police Department, nor any of the other police officers appeared to meet the inhabitants of Matani.
“We want to hear the real reasons behind Gela Niniashvili’s arrest. He does not deserve to be in jail”, say the protesters.

The protest lasted for several hours. The Matani inhabitants however warn that if their demands are not satisfied, they will cancel classes at schools and kinder gardens, which, they believe, will make the police pay attention.

Veriko Kobiashvili from Kakheti