Zurab Menteshashvili, an active participant in Georgia’s anti-government and pro-EU protests, was released from prison on July 31 after serving a nine-month sentence for “repeated road blockage.”
The offence for which he was convicted by Tbilisi City Court Judge Nino Galustashvili in May was introduced under controversial amendments adopted in October 2025 that criminalized repeated violations of certain protest-related administrative offences, including blocking roads to traffic during demonstrations.
Menteshashvili, 61, was the first protester to be arrested and convicted under the provision.
He was initially detained on October 24, 2025, under administrative procedures for “blocking a road” during ongoing protests on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue, outside parliament, and was sentenced to seven days in detention.
A week after his release, on October 31, he was arrested again over a similar offence. As it was considered a repeat violation, the case was classified as a criminal case carrying a potential sentence of up to one year in prison.
He spent seven months in pre-trial detention before the May ruling, which left him with two months remaining on his sentence.
“I love my homeland, I will do everything for it…I didn’t know if this [blocking the road] is a crime…Here I stand, I can do no other, arrest me for the fourth time if you want,” Menteshashvili told the court in his final remarks before he was convicted.
Georgia’s anti-government demonstrations began on November 28, 2024, after the ruling Georgian Dream party announced it would suspend efforts to advance the country’s EU integration process “until 2028.”
As authorities progressively tightened protest-related legislation, hundreds of demonstrators were first fined and later detained for blocking roads. Rustaveli Avenue, the traditional site of protests outside parliament, had been closed to traffic almost every night for nearly a year.
The restrictions were expanded in December 2025 to include pedestrian areas, when “obstructing the free movement of people” on sidewalks became an administrative offence. Dozens of protesters have since been sentenced to short periods of detention under the provision, in what critics say amounts to punishing citizens for protesting on sidewalks.
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