Parliament Speaker “expecting Embassy response” on Lithuanian politician’s call for sanctioning Georgian law enforcement officials

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday said he expected the Lithuanian Embassy to the country to make a response over a statement of Petras Auštrevičius, the Lithuanian politician and member of the European Parliament, who on Tuesday called for sanctioning Georgian law enforcement officials.

Papuashvili’s comments to the media followed the statement of Auštrevičius, who called on the European Union to use “specific and targeted sanctions” against Zviad Kharazishvili, the Director of the Special Tasks Department under the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Vazha Siradze, the Director of the Patrol Police Department under the same Ministry for “act[ing] against the will of the Georgian people”.

The Parliament Speaker called on the Embassy to “clarify why the Lithuanian politician is attacking the Georgian police, as an attack on the country’s law enforcement means an attack on the state”, and noted the statement was a “political and ideological support for Molotov cocktails thrown at police officers” during March 2023 protests in in the country’s capital Tbilisi against a proposed bill on transparency of foreign influence.

The official recalled a 2021 statement of the Lithuanian Ambassador, who called actions of the Georgian police during the arrest of the former head of the United National Movement opposition party, Nika Melia, “violence”.

Melia was charged with incitement to violence during the June protests in Tbilisi, in 2019, which were sparked by the presence of Russian MPs in the Georgian Parliament.

Papuashvili added the European Court of Human Rights had later confirmed the actions of Georgian law enforcers were a “legal measure” and said the Ambassador's statement at the time was “not true”.