Another Rally Held in Support of Ex-President Saakashvili
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Monday, October 25
A rally in support of ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili was held yesterday in front of the Rustavi #12 penitentiary institutions. Citizens, including politicians and activists, gathered to encourage Saakashvili and protest his imprisonment.
Such protests, according to Rustavi mayoral candidate Davit Kirkitadze, will in the end yield results, and Saakashvili will soon be released. The day before, a protest in support of Saakashvili was also held in Batumi.
The protests come after weeks of Saakashvili’s arrest. Since being imprisoned, the ex-president has been starving in protest.
Yesterday, Saakashvili’s ex-teammate and ex-prime minister Davit Bakradze visited him in the prison.
“He is looking forward to the second round of the elections, he is hopeful about the Georgian people's unity, and he is optimistic about the opposition's win in the second round. However, the three-week starvation has taken its toll on his physical condition, and as the doctors say, his health could critically worsen at any moment,” said Bakradze.
The doctors and attorneys of the former president warn that his health is rapidly declining, and he has to be hospitalized in an outside clinic since the prison hospital is not well-equipped to handle patients in his condition.
“Saakashvili’s greatest risk right now is heart failure; consequently, there should be a second level of cardiology service in the prison hospital, specifically interventional cardiology. Although there are doctors of various profiles in the prison hospital, different types of services cannot be provided. Saakashvili's health concerns encompass a very wide range of medical needs,” Nika Gvaramia, Saakashvili’s attorney and the director of TV Mtavari, explained.
On October 23, Saakashvili’s personal doctor, Nikoloz Kipshidze, said that the doctor’s council agreed that if necessary, the ex-president should be transferred to a multi-profile, high-class clinic. He also noted that the Ministry of Justice officials that he met were open to such consideration. Later that day, Minister of Justice Rati Bregadze called the doctor’s remarks untrue, and that Saakashvili would not be transferred to an outside hospital.
The leaders of the ruling Georgian Dream party are calling Saakashvili’s health concerns 'simulation' and 'clownery'.
"These speculations will increase in the coming days, as we get closer to the elections. …One of Saakashvili's plans is to simulate something as if he is sick and so on. We will be witnesses to this clownery before the elections at the end of the day, everyone is very tired of it,” said the ruling party leader Irakli Kobakhidze.
He added that Saakashvili is just another prisoner and therefore should be treated like the other inmates.
Ex-President Saakashvili, according to Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili, has an illusion that if he is transferred to a private clinic, his supporters will mobilize and release him on October 30, the date of the second round of the local elections.
“Saakashvili's direct order was that he would start, let's call it what it is, simulation as if his condition was getting worse, etc. so that he would somehow be transferred to a private clinic. …He's under the impression that on October 30 his supporters will mobilize and release him from the prison,” said Gharibashvili.
Gharibashvili further commented on the possibility of transferring the former president to a private hospital, saying that “if prisoner Saakashvili requires more tests, all of the necessary equipment is available in the prison hospital. This is our decision, and it will not be reconsidered.”
Saakashvili was arrested on October 1. He has been on a hunger strike for 25 days. The doctors’ council working on his case recommended his hospitalization. It is still unknown when and where Saakashvili will be transferred for further medical testing.
