MP’s hunger strike “encourages” ex-pres. Saakashvili to disobey doctors – parliament speaker

Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Friday said the ongoing hunger strike of four United National Movement opposition party MPs, to put pressure on the authorities to transport convicted former president Mikheil Saakashvili for treatment abroad, encouraged the latter to “disobey” medical personnel and “harm his own health”. 

After the meeting with the opposition MPs in the parliament building, Papuashvili alleged the opposition seemed more interested in worsening Saakashvili’s condition, while the authorities had been doing “its utmost” to ensure his health. 

“A hunger strike is not a form to exert pressure on the government to force it to make certain decisions. Thus, I have called on the MPs to stop the protest. Georgia is a legal state, where all questions are resolved through legal procedures and calls, coercion, blackmail, especially at the cost of one’s own health, are unacceptable.On the contrary, such behavior, in the end, prompts Saakashvili not to cooperate with the penitentiary system or doctors “,Papuashvili said. 

UNM MPs Davit Kirkitadze, Ana Tsitlidze, Abdula Ismailov and Temur Janashia are currently on hunger strike.