Georgian Parliament Speaker Papuashvili criticizes British Embassy statement as ‘unfriendly’

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Friday described a recent statement from the British Embassy in Georgia, in which the UK expresses deep concern over the freezing of the accounts of seven non-governmental organisations, as “another unfriendly statement towards the Georgian people”.

Papuashvili accused the Embassy of previously attempting to provide funding to what he called organisations with “an extremist agenda,” including the newspaper Tabula and the NGO Academy of the Future.

He said such actions raised “legitimate suspicions” that the Embassy’s goal was not to support local elections, but to “financially empower individuals with the goal of sabotaging the elections.”

Papuashvili said he had earlier called on the Embassy to clarify its funding activities and disclose which groups it was supporting during the 2024 elections, but claimed that “the Embassy left the public’s questions and concerns unanswered.”

“Instead, we received another unfriendly statement towards the Georgian people,” Papuashvili wrote on Facebook.