One name is most appropriate for them: “Prisoners of Dishonesty” – Shalva Papuashvili

Criminal prosecution has been initiated against approximately 100 individuals, in addition to the organizers of the violence, for crimes related to the violent protests of 2024-2025. Today, 45 of them are free – based on their confessions, a plea agreement was signed with some, and the president pardoned some. 72 individuals are still in prison, – Shalva Papuashvili, the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, wrote about this on social media.

“This situation raises one main question: if the government’s goal is to lock these people in prison, as people speaking on their behalf claim, then why are 45 people free today? The answer is simple: these people have never been political enemies for the state.

They were blind weapons in the hands of irresponsible people who first convinced them that breaking the law in the name of the revolution was heroic, then let them go to the barricades, and when the revolution failed and the time for responsibility came, they themselves remained calm behind the barricades.

A revolution needs victims. A defeated revolution needs victims even more. And the role of these victims was played by those who were the easiest to incite and use. Therefore, the main question today is no longer why these 72 people are in prison. The main question is: who needs them to remain there? The government? Then why were 45 people released on the basis of a plea agreement and a presidential pardon?

Why is there a legal path to freedom for those who realize their responsibility And admit to the crime they committed? Or do they really need to remain in prison, who were attracted to the barricades, and then sculpted from them “eyeballs”, “smiling boys”, “suns” and other symbols of political struggle?

Our attitude was not different then and has not changed today: these people are victims of manipulation. First they were used as soldiers of the barricades, and now they are used as prisoners-victims.

The state’s approach is simple: understand what you were involved in; take responsibility for your actions; admit that you broke the law and confirm that you will not repeat the same thing again. This is not a demand to renounce political views. This is taking legal responsibility for a specific action. There is no humiliation in this, no gaining a badge, and no demonstration of moral superiority over someone. This is the simultaneous standard of the rule of law and a humane state. But the moral terror that is being carried out against them today by people who themselves sit freely in cafes in Brussels or Tbilisi and dictate to others that they “must sit until the end” is something completely different.

Why? Because they need victims. They need people in prison in order to maintain the illusion of fighting outside. They need “figureheads” and “stars” on posters in order to feed their own political egos and maintain the image of victims for a defeated revolution. Therefore, their cry – “Freedom to the prisoners!” – is actually taking on the opposite meaning: do not take responsibility! Do not dare to leave prison! Sit until the end! We do not need your freedom, but your imprisonment! However, this path has long been a dead end. The verdicts have been handed down, the crimes have been acknowledged, and there is no sane person left inside or outside the country who would say that the protest was not violent. Along with the revolution, revolutionary propaganda was defeated.

That is why the situation of these 72 people is especially difficult today. They are not only serving their sentences for their own crimes. They also remain prisoners of the dishonesty of those people who first pushed them to break the law, then abandoned them, and now declare their release a moral crime. Therefore, one name is most suitable for them: “Prisoners of Dishonesty,” writes Shalva Papuashvili.