Less than 24 hours after electing a new Prime Minister, the leader of the largest opposition party in Georgia was arrested in a morning raid by police at the party’s HQ in Tbilisi.

Reacting to the news on Tuesday 23 February, ALDE Party President Hans van Baalen issued the following statement:

“I am deeply concerned by the forceful arrest of the Nika Melia, leader of the opposition United National Movement party, in a raid with tear gas on the party’s HQ early this morning.”

“At a sensitive moment of ongoing political crisis exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic, resorting to force, inflaming political tensions and suppressing dissenting voices is absolutely not the solution that Georgian citizens deserve.”

“We urgently call for restraint, calm, and for political differences to be resolved in parliament and not through heavy-handed and arbitrary arrests of opposition figures.“

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