‘We can be on the path to the EU or to Belarus’: Political thug culture grips Georgia

Intimidation is becoming a feature of daily life, even before a controversial new Kremlin-style law takes effect.

Gia Japaridze, a 50-year-old lecturer and former diplomat, was ambushed near his home in Tbilisi on the evening of May 8 by several people wielding sticks and what he believed was a baseball bat.

“I was born in the Soviet Union. I wasn’t afraid of the Communists. They can’t scare me either. I don’t have any doubts — I know that the government was behind this,” said Japaridze, who needed stitches, suffered a concussion and received deep livid bruises across his back.

His assailants made clear they were targeting him because of his public opposition to a Russian-style law on “foreign agents” that Georgia’s parliament approved on Tuesday.

Critics of the new law fear the government will use it to crack down on media, the opposition and civil society in this Caucasian country of 3.7 million people. Tens of thousands of protesters have packed the streets, incensed that their government seems determined to scupper the country’s prospects of joining the EU.

Brussels had feared the new law would precede a brutal crackdown on dissent — but violence and intimidation against the opposition is already spiking, even before the law takes effect.