Tbilisi City Court fined a pensioner woman 2400 GEL for writing a comment about a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

When I had my court hearing, some of my friends were late and couldn’t get into the courtroom. And now I’ll tell you what one of them told me:
Since I couldn’t get in with you, I went toward the courtroom where the prisoner of conscience was, and on the way I met an elderly woman, a grandmother.

She asked me: ‘My child, yesterday they called me, they summoned me to court, and I don’t know where to go or what to do, it’s my first time in this building.’
I helped her figure it out, and it turned out she had a hearing. She was so nervous.
I told her: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go in with you.’

So I went in. They were accusing her over something she had written in a comment to a comment under a Facebook post about a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The woman was distraught: ‘I didn’t know, my child, that it wasn’t allowed. Bring that person here and I’ll apologize, or I will go to him myself and apologize. I live only on my pension, and if you fine me, I will be left hungry. Whatever you tell me, I will do — only please, don’t destroy me.’

The MIA representative relented, even the judge didn’t know what to do. He went out, deliberated, deliberated again, and then fined her 2400 GEL — for words written in a comment to a comment under a Facebook post.

And we know why they fined this grandmother: so that if I write something, if someone else writes something, fear is sown. And that is exactly why I’m writing this… Every ‘dreamer’ [pro-government supporter] should tremble, unable to write even a single comment, terrified that they might say something ‘wrong,’ that they might outmaneuver me with logic and throw me onto the garbage heap.

It’s not just posts anymore — now even comments to comments are controlled. Soon you won’t be able to send a message, or even speak at home.

This is what your silence has brought us. Here I am, writing publicly, fulfilling the wish of the ‘dreamers,’ and telling you: be afraid!

First of all, you should be afraid of what you post or write online, be afraid of your messages, of your calls — be afraid of everything. Be silent, be voiceless servants, without rights. You deserve it… Congratulations. You have truly brought us the kind of democracy that amazed Europe and America, and in return, you have fallen permanently silent.

And what is a person, who is alive but voiceless? Someone who cannot speak, who is mute — a mouth silenced? Animal?