"We worked as a detonator." How are friends on "what?" Where? When?" Helped President Georgia to have mercy on Nick Hvaray - one of the main political prisoners of Georgia

In May 2022, the court found Nika Guarium guilty of illegally using an official car. According to the verdict, in 2019, Gvaray concluded a deal with Porsche Center Tbilisi: in exchange for transferring the Porsche Macan car, worth 76,700 euros, the company received advertising discounts. The court decided that Gvaray and his family members subsequently used a car for personal purposes, which caused the television channel damage to an unidentified amount.

According to the court, in 2015, Gvaray as the director of the television company entered into an agreement with the intermediary company for the wholesale sale of advertising time. As a result, the revenue of the intermediary, the court decided, significantly exceeded the amount paid by him, and the loss of Rustavi 2 as a result of the transaction amounted to 6,763,509 Lari (2,239,572 dollars at the rate at the time of the transaction).

In 2015, the former shareholder of the Channel Kibar Halvashi filed a lawsuit to declare the 2012 transaction, under which he lost his shares, invalid. As a result, in 2019, the Supreme Court sided with, the next day Nika Gvaray was fired. The People’s Defender of Georgia Nino Lomjaria and representatives of human rights NPOs called this trial politically motivated. In the period from 2012 to 2019, the leaders of the ruling party many times critically spoke about the editorial policy of Rustavi 2.

Nikoloz (Nika) Gvaray is the former director of the Rustavi 2 television channel, member of the government of Mikheil Saakashvili and political prisoner. He was condemned for 3.5 years under the article “Abuse of powers”, but on June 22, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili pardoned Guarium.

The active campaign in support of the journalist began in February 2023. The Gvaray case began to appear more often in the news: with the support of professional communities, human rights activists and journalists, the movement held street actions , and published petitions . European politicians spoke about the Gvaray case: with a direct call to have mercy on the journalist to the president, the EU and the US ambassadors in Georgia turned to the president.

About how the supporters of Guaria managed to achieve a result in six months, Paper Kartuli was told by Giorgi Lomidze, co -founder of the movement for the liberation of Nicky Gwairamia, economist, head of the Department of Economics at the University of Georgia.

What you need to know about the case of Nicky Guaria

Nika Gvaray was the director of one of the largest television channels of Georgia - Rustavi 2 from 2012 to 2019 and was dismissed after a change of shareholders. Transparency International called “Rustavi 2” the only large opposition after the government of the government of Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2012. After the dismissal of Guaria, the editorial policy of Rustavi 2 changed: the channel began to support the ruling party “Georgian Dream” and the current government.

In May 2022, the court found Guarium guilty of using Porsche Macan, who was purchased in exchange for advertising a car dealership during his personal purposes, and sentenced to a prison period of 3.5 years. In November, the Court of Appeal upheld this sentence and added another episode: the conclusion of advertising contracts through an intermediary that caused a loss to the channel.

The court did not heed the arguments of lawyers who indicated that all the decisions of Nicky Gvaray were agreed with majority shareholders, and the plaintiff in the case of advertising contracts (according to the verdict that caused the damage to more than 6.7 million Lari) was the minority shareholder with 9 % - Nino Nizharadze, which was not at the time the transaction was completed by the shareholder.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court supported the previous instances. More than 40 public organizations said that the Gvaray case is political, and the verdict is unlawful.

Giorgi Lomidze
co -founder of the movement for the liberation of Nicky Gvaray, economist, head of the Department of Economics at the University of Georgia

"This is a matter of public importance." How did the movement for the liberation of Nicky Guaria arose

- The movement originated in the circle of friends of Nicky Gvaray from the sports club “What? Where? When? ”, In which Nob was participated for more than 25 years. Nick was one of the best players in the club, repeated champion of Georgia, a member of the Georgian national team. Even before joining politics in 2003, many in the country knew him as an intellectual and erudite from this television game. In recent years, we rarely talked, because he was very busy and did not go to the club.

Naturally, when Nick was arrested, for all of us it was a shock. We said among themselves what we could do, but at that time we did not see their role in this process. We believed that this is a matter of state importance: Nika is a leading media manager of the country, the head of an independent channel, a person with a political background. We saw in the main role [in the campaign] of the media, human rights organizations and opposition forces.

After the decision of the Court of Appeal [November 2, 2022], which not only left the first sentence in force, but also returned the episode excluded by the court of first instance, we had a state of apathy and confusion. Lawyers filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court, but we had no hope that something could change.

We saw the individual efforts of public organizations and politicians, but, unfortunately, they had no result, and, as it seemed to me, they came to naught. The Ombudsman office actively worked on this topic and Nino Lomjaria herself spoke about the case. The same applies to the association of young lawyers and Transparency International. There are no complaints about them.

Our group was collected and rallied by one of our friends and Soklubnikov [former deputy of the Parliament from the Georgian Dream party] Gedevan Puphadze . For the first time, we gathered in a narrow circle in mid-January 2023, there were five or six of us. Gedevan said that we cannot be inactive anymore, we must do something.

Illusions that we can force the court, or rather power - since we do not believe that the court was independent in this particular case - we did not have. The minimum program that we outlined for ourselves was to raise the relevance of this case in society, to convey information about the injustice of what is happening to the maximum number of people. We decided that we must beat the alarm, write appeals to the president, international organizations, diplomatic representations.

We gathered around us a couple of dozen people from our circle, close in spirit and beliefs, contacted Nicky’s colleagues, primarily from MTAVARI ARKHI, and from other independent television companies - TV Pirveli, Formula and Kavkasia. They supported us and also became the co -founders of our movement. On February 16, we announced the establishment of our movement and stated that nine months have passed as Nika Guaray was in prison for nothing, and we cannot allow such injustice.

What is wrong with the case of Nicky Gvaray, in the opinion of the movement for his liberation

Note: the editorial office of Paper Kartuli does not have the opportunity to confirm a number of statements made in this part of the interview: about the motives of Nicky Gvaray when concluding contracts, about the motives of the Supreme Court’s actions, as well as law enforcement practice under Article 220 of the Criminal Code of Georgia (“abuse of powers”).

- Unfortunately, in general, Georgia is characteristic that we do not go into details, everything is at the level of slogans. There were many materials in the media, where there were the same very short phrases. As a result, most people did not know why Nick really condemned, and, as a result, they formed their position based on political sympathy.

The fact that this matter is political indicates many details. For example, over the past five years, there have been dozens of similar cases and convictions, and they had not been awarded to anyone, only fines.

In the episode with advertising contracts, Guariya was accused of leaving his actions to be a loss for the company. Suppose even if he, as a manager, made a mistake or his actions appreciated the post-fact, it is necessary to prove that he did this maliciously, with some benefit for himself. But this is not in the case.

In fact, Nick, as a leader, insured political risks for the company, having concluded an advertisement for the sale of advertising on Rustavi 2 broadcast, through an intermediary, based on the data for the previous year. As a result, the intermediary earned more than he paid the TV channel, and this fact formed the basis of the prosecution. The risk of an intermediary was justified, he earned. But in conditions of political pressure, this could not have happened. In undemocratic countries, we are familiar with such cases when advertising leaves opposition media.

The term for consideration of cassation in the Supreme Court is six months. At the first stage, a collegium gathers, which decides how much this case is generally subject to consideration by the Supreme Court, and then hearings are already going on on the merits. And even at this first stage, the collegium was not gathering until the beginning of June, more than five months passed. That is, they just pulled time. If a negative decision was made immediately, then the case would go to Strasbourg five months earlier.

"The entire budget amounted to 4000 Lari." How the movement for the liberation of Guaria worked and where did the money come from

-Most of us had no experience of neither political activity, nor activism, with the exception of two or three people. On the advice of more experienced of us, we officially registered our organization . To formalize our movement: this simplifies the processes, including in terms of some expenses and contacting other organizations, to diplomats, and politicians.

Expenses are a printing house (posters and banners), renting space for meetings and briefings, a scene, audio equipment, a generator, screens on promotions. There was an idea to organize public fundraising. We thought about posting account numbers [on the movement page] so that people would make donations. There was also an idea to directly contact people who could finance the campaign, but decided that it was not worth doing this so that they would not write down any glasses for themselves, or so that Nick did not feel in debt.

As a result, we decided to finance everything on our own, by means of a dozen members of the movement. We had to fandrait three times, so to speak, to take a throw inside our initiative group: we brought each 100, 50 Lari. Our entire budget, when we have already completed our activities, amounted to about 4 thousand Lari - these are all our expenses in five months. Perhaps many will not believe, but more than half of the cases they simply did not take money from us when they found out why this was needed, and this helped us morally even more than financially.

We shared responsibilities quite spontaneously. Some more than others made statements, performed, went to the air. There were people who actively communicated with the media in terms of organization. There were guys, not at all public who prepared the texts of appeals, letters to the diplomats based on their background. Different people could combine different roles. Everything was absolutely horizontally with us, all decisions were made collegial.

Promotions, letters and pressure from the outside. What the movement made to free Nicky Guaria

- We did not have a clear and long -term strategy, decisions were made promptly. We assigned a significant role in public activity: first of all, television broadcasters. There were many members of our movement in different political programs and talk shows.

Another direction is the formation of initiative groups in various professional environments: among lawyers, doctors, writers, artists, teachers. The format was the same: we made an appeal on behalf of our movement and distributed it as much as possible. People subscribed in electronic format, and those who had a desire to gather physically and fix their position, we gave such an opportunity. Then these meetings were lit in the media. Independent television companies helped a lot in all these actions.

We organized symbolic actions in the courtyard of the first corps of Tbilisi State University, which graduated from Nika Guaray, attended by representatives of different universities. We turned to various international organizations, wrote a letter to the President of France. On May 27, we conducted a large action in support of Nicky Gvaray near the President’s residence, to which politicians and public people were invited.

Just a week before the decision on pardon, we began a campaign with appeals to the heads of European states, the EU and the USA to the introduction of sanctions against judges and prosecutors who considered the Hvairamia case for all instances, and relied on the decision on the sanctions against four Georgian judges on the part of the US State Department. We managed to contact the US Embassy, ​​the next day we had to send a letter to the EU ambassador, but, fortunately, this was no longer needed.

"The background is important for the president." How and why it turned out to achieve the liberation of Nicky Guaria

- Back in February, we made a letter to the President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili. The next day, we were called from the presidential administration and invited to meet with its leader. Also at the meeting were the parliamentary secretary and adviser to the president on pardon. For us, this was an opportunity to explain our position: that our movement is not political in nature, that it serves as the only goal - the liberation of Nicky of Guaria, that we are constructive and ready for cooperation.

We understood that the decision to pardon would not be quick, and were simultaneously ready to work in other areas - to work with society, to inform, to raise the relevance of the topic. We also understood that this decision would be difficult, because it would cause confrontation with the authorities, and the background is important for the president on which the decision will be made. Thus, we promised support, not to the president, but in the formation of the correct public opinion regarding the case of the case.

Nicky’s fundamental position was that he was not going to ask for pardon, because he was innocent and cannot ask himself about it. We tried to make it so that it was a request from not some kind of group of people, but a request from society within the country and from the international community.

It seems to me that we managed to create a spark and work as a detonator who pushed individual opposition politicians, activated non -governmental organizations, individual public people who did not have so actively spoke so much before, international organizations. The topic began to emerge in a large number of political broadcasts and an interview on other topics.

I know for sure (partly open information, partly closed) that at all the meetings of the president with foreign representatives, diplomats, and politicians, this was the first topic for conversation. Not because this is the main topic for Georgia, but based on the role of the President: unlike so many others where she has no leverage, here she could free a person with one stroke of the pen.

The shares also played a role in our business. As it seemed to me, the actions against the law on foreign agents partly worked and because the pressure on the power of Georgia from the outside played a role. But this pressure would not be if foreign politicians did not see the request of society from the inside. Recently, there has been such a trend: they are trying to fight for our freedom, but do not see a request from Georgia itself. And why should they do this if the Georgians themselves do not need it?

I want to stipulate that there were no promises and even any hints that Nika would have been pardoned from the presidential administration. But for some reason we really believed that this would happen on Easter. The fact is that the president is always issuing an act of pardon before Easter, and we expected that Nika could get into the list. We thought that this could be a convenient opportunity for the president, so as not to distinguish this in a separate political matter, but to issue as an act of Christian mercy.

As a result, she explained that she was in no hurry with the decision, because let the court make a decision first. And in a sense, it would be better for a person to be justified than pardon. I don’t know how much the president believed in this, we had no illusion about this.

People with common values ​​gathered in our movement, but we have very different political views. We cannot and do not want to tie other questions to our only mission - the liberation of Nicky Guaria. We will cease to exist. Now we are in the process of liquidation of a legal entity, the decision on this has already been made.

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