In the middle, holding sunflowers, is Mrs. Nani Tsulaia, the mother of 21-year-old Giorgi Mindadze. Today is her birthday.

Giorgi, a 21-year-old medical student, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for setting off fireworks at a protest—fireworks that injured no one.

Crushed by a sense of injustice, we clashed in the corridors and the yard of the court—we cried, we shouted. Even taking photos or videos is forbidden, even in the yard. At that moment, we all hugged Nani, who kept shouting: “Don’t be afraid, everything is fine, don’t cry! Look how many guests you came with to my birthday!”

For almost an hour, there was hand-to-hand scuffling with the guardians of absurdity in the courtyard. Everyone was pulling each other back, because even if someone accidentally hit another person, it meant 7 years in prison.

And I will never forget how Mrs. Nani burst in—whose son had just been sentenced to 5 years—and shouted: “Let’s go, my dears, you are my guests, let’s go to our home on Rustaveli, leave this place.”

I stood there thinking: what a great human being you are, when in such a moment you worry more that someone else might get arrested, and you tell others: “Don’t worry, don’t be afraid, we must stay strong.”

There is something extraordinary about our prisoners of conscience and their families.