The political scientist assessed the prospects for the release of protesters in Georgia

Archil Sikharulidze, founder of the SIKHA Foundation Research Institute, noted in an interview with Izvestia that the ruling Georgian Dream party had repeatedly carried out the procedure of pardoning opposition leaders.

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"Let's remember Nikanor Melia, who later went back to prison. So this tactic is no longer working, because the West is asking for someone to be pardoned, knowing at the same time that the person was lawfully imprisoned. He was pardoned, and then he goes out to protest again, storming the parliament building," the political scientist noted.

In his opinion, it is not completely clear why then the "Georgian Dream" should have mercy on someone.

"If [US President] Donald Trump shakes hands with the Georgian Dream and restores the strategic partnership with Georgia against the background of the fact that Brussels and Europe are still trying to overthrow the Georgian authorities, this proposal may be interesting. During the rule of the Georgian Dream, there were no official political prisoners in the country. In Strasbourg, the authorities won all the cases of all the so-called political prisoners in the European Court of Human Rights. The party claims that "political prisoners" are a political mechanism of struggle," Sikharulidze said.

After the release of more than 120 prisoners in Belarus on December 13, opposition figures in Georgia began talking about the possibility that the US president could agree on a similar scenario with the ruling Georgian Dream.

For more information about the prospects of these requirements, see the Izvestia article:

Lobbyist in Washington: Georgia called for the release of protesters for the sake of relations with the United States

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