On 6 August 2025, the Batumi City Court sentenced Mzia Amaglobeli to two years in prison on charges of ‘resistance, threat, or violence against a public official’ under Article 353 of Georgia’s Criminal Code, after she slapped Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze during a crackdown on peaceful protests in the southwestern town on 12 January 2025.  

Amaglobeli was first detained on 11 January 2025 on administrative charges after placing a sticker related to a planned strike at the entrance of a police station in Batumi, and was released on bail the following day. While she was speaking to supporters outside the police station, police started detaining several of those gathered, resulting in an altercation between Amaglobeli and Dgebuadze. Police promptly arrested Amaglobeli on grossly disproportionate charges of assaulting a police officer (Article 353(1) of the Criminal Code), which carry a sentence of between four and seven years in prison. Her requests for release on bail were repeatedly denied.  

Amaglobeli’s health severely deteriorated while in detention. She endured a 38-day hunger strike in protest at her arrest. Suffering from keratoconus, a degenerative eye condition, she began losing her eyesight and is at risk of going blind. At a hearing on 14 July 2025, Amaglobeli testified about the abuse she suffered at the hands of the police, including being verbally abused and spat at, being denied access to water and toilet facilities, and having her repeated requests to speak to her lawyers initially denied. Although she reported her allegations to the Special Investigation Service (SIS), a body responsible for investigating crimes committed by officials, no one has been held accountable to date. Her sentencing on politically motivated grounds generated a national and international outcry, with diplomatic missions from 24 countries in Georgia issuing a joint statement demanding her immediate release.  

Mzia Amaglobeli’s case is emblematic of the relentless and pervasive onslaught unleashed by the Georgian authorities against independent voices in Georgia, as documented in a joint UN submission by PEN Georgia, PEN International and PEN America. The organisations reiterate calls on the Georgian authorities to abide by their national and international obligations and to fully uphold fundamental rights.  

Born on 12 May 1975, Mzia Amaglobeli began her journalistic career in 2000, and notably co-founded two independent, award-winning online news sites, the platform Netgazeti and the newspaper Batumelebi, which report on human rights violations in Georgia, as well as cases of corruption. Netgazeti and Batumelebi – alongside fellow independent media and civil society organisations – are standing on the brink of survival and facing closure due to increasingly repressive laws adopted by the Georgian authorities. A staunch activist, Amaghlobeli also initiated a project called Bookmobile, which in 2021 and 2022 brought books to children and adults in numerous villages and hosted discussions with Georgian writers. 

She is a laureate of the 2025 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, which will be awarded by the European Parliament on 16 December.