Georgian Dream calls award to convicted media manager ‘deep state’s signature’

The ruling Georgian Dream party has criticized the decision to award the title of World Press Freedom Hero to Mzia Amaglobili, a media manager currently serving a prison sentence for assaulting a police official.

At a briefing held at the party’s central office on Friday, Giorgi Grdzelishvili, head of the party’s communications office, said the award - established by the International Press Institute (IPI) in partnership with International Media Support (IMS) - demonstrated “the severe crisis of international journalism” and “the total control of global media by the same political centers that dominate Brussels.”

“This clearly shows the dire state of international media, which, like the political establishment in Brussels, is controlled from a single center. Every such decision serves a specific political agenda,” Grdzelishvili claimed.

He argued that Amaglobili was “rewarded for fulfilling her assignment” and that declaring her a hero was “a hallmark of the Deep State,” which, according to him, applied “distorted standards” both in politics and in the media.

“A convicted individual who committed targeted violence against state institutions has been turned into a hero on the international stage. This is the Deep State’s handwriting - they always portray coup organizers as victims, and the law-enforcing government as aggressors,” he said.

Grdzelishvili also accused international organizations of double standards, claiming that while “violent journalists” were praised abroad, professional journalists in Georgia were unfairly labeled as “Russian propagandists.”

He went on to link the case to broader allegations about foreign influence, claiming that Georgia’s political and media space was saturated with ‘foreign agents’ acting under external direction.

“Their handlers push them to take illegal steps against the legitimate government. Those who do so - like [Nika] Gvaramia, [Nika] Melia, [Zurab] Japaridze, and others - are now serving their sentences, just like Amaglobili. But apparently, only she earned the Deep State’s ‘hero’ title,” Grdzelishvili said.

He added that past recipients of Western awards, such as Nika Gvaramia and Nino Lomjaria, had also been “rewarded by Deep State-linked foundations” - Gvaramia “for normalizing obscenity in the media” and Lomjaria for serving as “the personal ombudsman of Saakashvili and the United National Movement.”

Grdzelishvili further described the 2024 incident for which Amaglobili was convicted, saying she “deliberately turned toward an officer who was already walking away and slapped him in the face,” an act he said symbolically represented “a slap in the face of the Georgian state itself.”

“Through Amaglobili’s hand, her patrons slapped the state. Declaring her a hero is not just an encouragement of her act, but a message to other agents - that anyone who faithfully executes the Deep State’s orders will be recorded among its heroes,” Grdzelishvili concluded.