Mzia Amaghlobeli, founder of Batumelebi and Netgazeti, journalist, media manager, and currently imprisoned, has been awarded the Sakharov Prize, the European Union’s highest human rights award. She shares the prize with Belarusian journalist Andrei Pachebut.

The Sakharov Prize is the EU’s highest recognition for contributions to the protection of human rights. It acknowledges and supports individuals, groups, and organizations that have made significant efforts to defend freedom of expression.
Established in 1988 and named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize honors work in areas such as freedom of expression, minority rights, and the rule of law.
Among its most influential laureates are Nelson Mandela, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In 2022, the prize was awarded to the Ukrainian people for their resistance against Russian aggression and defense of national sovereignty.

Inga Grigolia – Journalists are standing in the streets because… look, Guram Rogava is standing next to me now — he was attacked not long ago, and no one has been punished. Maka Chikhladze and Giorgi Shetsiruli were attacked live on air — no one has been punished. Not only has no one been punished, they are now persecuting our colleagues and repressing all of us. ‘What did they want?’ they ask. They wanted freedom. They are fighting so that in their country no one gets bloodied, so that journalists are not kicked while doing their job. You can’t just stay silent and not protest when, instead of at least being allowed to do your professional duties, they call you an agent, a spy, a traitor…

Those imprisoned and silenced journalists — Vakho Sanaia, Keta Tsitskishvili, Cira Zhvania, and above all Mzia Amaghlobeli — that’s why people were protesting, and that’s what we are protesting too. A dictatorship is really being formed through these repressive laws… and then through the enforcement of these unjust laws. I’ve heard so many people say this already — I’m just repeating their words — but even the Nazis once justified their decisions that way: ‘We were merely enforcing the law,’ said the judges. It depends on what kind of law you have adopted.

We must protest a law that was adopted in complete slavish obedience — what else can we do? What do you expect us to do when Vakho Sanaia is in jail instead of on live TV hosting his show? In this country they tell us about their ministers, a former prime minister — that he stole money — and yet he goes home without punishment; we even saw the footage. And at the same time Keta Tsitskishvili is locked up. This is the country we have, and that’s why we stand — to try, in some way, to block the formal establishment of a dictatorship. Because the dictatorship is already here in this country…

I created this drawing in 1988, the same year I moved from Soviet Georgia to the United States. (At the time, Georgia was under Soviet rule.) Today’s events in both Georgia and the U.S. reminded me of this drawing, and I wanted to share it with you.