TBILISI: Georgia on Tuesday jailed prominent opposition figure Nika Gvaramia for eight months, the latest in a wave of arrests targeting politicians, activists, and journalists critical of the ruling party.
The EU candidate nation has been gripped by political unrest since the disputed parliamentary elections last October, when the ruling Georgian Dream party declared victory, sparking mass protests.
Demonstrators accuse the ruling party, which shelved EU membership talks, of veering toward authoritarian rule and steering the country closer to Moscow — accusations the government rejects.
On Tuesday, a Tbilisi court sentenced Gvaramia — the co-leader of the key opposition Akhali party — to eight months in prison and barred him from holding public office for two years, his lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili told AFP.
“The verdict is unlawful and part of the government’s attempt to crush all dissent in Georgia,” he said.
Gvaramia was sentenced for refusing to cooperate with a parliamentary commission investigating alleged abuses under imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
Nearly all of Georgia’s opposition leaders have been jailed this month on similar charges.
Saakashvili, a pro-Western reformer, is currently serving a 12-and-a-half-year prison term on charges widely denounced by rights groups as politically driven.
Opposition figures have rejected the commission’s legitimacy, accusing the ruling Georgian Dream party of using it as a tool to suppress dissent.
Amnesty International said last week that the “disputed” commission “has been instrumentalized to target former public officials for their principled opposition.”
Ahead of last year’s elections, Georgian Dream announced plans to outlaw all major opposition parties.
Brussels has said Georgia’s democratic backsliding derails it from its longstanding EU membership bid enshrined in the country’s constitution and supported — according to opinion polls — by some 80 percent of the population.
The United States and several European countries have imposed sanctions on some Georgian Dream officials.
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Georgia jails another opposition figure in crackdown on dissent
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Georgia jails another opposition figure in crackdown on dissent
- Protestors accuse the ruling party of veering toward authoritarian rule and steering the country closer to Moscow
Passenger bus crash in Indonesia kills at least 16 people, official says
- A rescue official in Indonesia says a passenger bus crash has killed at least 16 people on Indonesia’s main island of Java
- The official says a bus carrying 34 people lost control on a toll road just after midnight Monday and struck a concrete barrier before rolling onto its side
JAKARTA: A passenger bus crash killed at least 16 people on Indonesia’s main island of Java just after midnight Monday, officials said.
The bus carrying 34 people lost control on a toll road and struck a concrete barrier before rolling onto its side, said Budiono, a search and rescue agency chief who goes by single name like many Indonesians.
The inter-province bus was traveling from the capital Jakarta to the country’s ancient royal city of Yogyakarta when it overturned while entering a curved exit ramp at the Krapyak toll way in Central Java’s Semarang city, he said.
“The forceful impact threw several passengers and left them trapped against the bus body,” Budiono said.
Police and rescue teams arrived about 40 minutes after the accident and recovered the bodies of six passengers who died at the scene. Another 10 people died on the way to a hospital or while being treated, Budiono said.
The 18 victims being treated at two nearby hospitals included five people in critical condition and 13 in serious condition, he said.
Television news reports showed the yellow bus overturned on its side and surrounded by National Search and Rescue Agency personnel, police and passersby as ambulances transported victims and the dead away from the accident scene.
Witnesses told authorities the bus was traveling at high speed before the driver lost control, Central Java Police Chief Ribut Hari Wibowo said at Dr. Karyadi General Hospital in Semarang where the bodies were being identified.
The driver was a substitute who sustained serious injuries but was able to communicate while under medical care, he said.
“We are still investigating the cause of the crash and questioning the injured substitute driver,” Wibowo said, adding that police planned to test the driver for prohibited substances including drugs.
The bus carrying 34 people lost control on a toll road and struck a concrete barrier before rolling onto its side, said Budiono, a search and rescue agency chief who goes by single name like many Indonesians.
The inter-province bus was traveling from the capital Jakarta to the country’s ancient royal city of Yogyakarta when it overturned while entering a curved exit ramp at the Krapyak toll way in Central Java’s Semarang city, he said.
“The forceful impact threw several passengers and left them trapped against the bus body,” Budiono said.
Police and rescue teams arrived about 40 minutes after the accident and recovered the bodies of six passengers who died at the scene. Another 10 people died on the way to a hospital or while being treated, Budiono said.
The 18 victims being treated at two nearby hospitals included five people in critical condition and 13 in serious condition, he said.
Television news reports showed the yellow bus overturned on its side and surrounded by National Search and Rescue Agency personnel, police and passersby as ambulances transported victims and the dead away from the accident scene.
Witnesses told authorities the bus was traveling at high speed before the driver lost control, Central Java Police Chief Ribut Hari Wibowo said at Dr. Karyadi General Hospital in Semarang where the bodies were being identified.
The driver was a substitute who sustained serious injuries but was able to communicate while under medical care, he said.
“We are still investigating the cause of the crash and questioning the injured substitute driver,” Wibowo said, adding that police planned to test the driver for prohibited substances including drugs.
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