Georgia's Jailed Ex-leader Announces New Hunger Strike

Georgia's jailed ex-president and opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili announced a new hunger strike Monday as doctors warned that failure to provide him with proper care could lead to his incapacitation

Tbilisi, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Feb, 2022 ) :Georgia's jailed ex-president and opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili announced a new hunger strike Monday as doctors warned that failure to provide him with proper care could lead to his incapacitation.

The 54-year-old pro-Western reformer and Georgia's president from 2004 to 2013 was jailed on October 1 shortly after he secretly returned to Georgia from exile in Ukraine.

He then refused food for 50 days to protest his imprisonment for abuse of office, a conviction he has denounced as politically motivated.

He called off his hunger strike after he was placed -- in a critical condition -- in a military hospital in Georgia's eastern city of Gori.

Independent doctors said at the time his health had suffered as a result of ill-treatment in custody and his hunger strike.

"Today, I am going on a hunger strike," he told a Tbilisi court.

"My demand is that I am given adequate medical care, as advised by independent doctors." In December, an independent council of doctors who examined Saakashvili in custody, said he had developed neurological disorders "as a result of torture, ill-treatment, inadequate medical care, and a prolonged hunger-strike".

They diagnosed him with Wernicke's encephalopathy, a potentially life-threatening brain disease, and with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), among other conditions.

One of the council members, psychiatrist Mariam Jishkariani, said on Monday that "Saakashvili's renewed hunger strike might prove fatal.

" "Currently, he is denied proper medical treatment and that might lead to his permanent incapacitation," she told AFP.

- 'Political revenge' - In late December, Saakashvili returned to prison, which he and a council of doctors set up by Georgia's rights ombudsperson have said cannot provide him with proper treatment.

He also protested on Monday the prison administration's decision to ban his personal doctor from visiting him in custody.

Saakashvili's arrest exacerbated a political crisis stemming from 2020 parliamentary polls that the opposition denounced as fraudulent.

It also sparked the largest anti-government protests in a decade.

Amnesty International has branded Saakashvili's treatment "not just selective justice but apparent political revenge".

The US State Department has urged Georgia's government "to treat Saakashvili fairly and with dignity".

The European Court of Human Rights demanded that the ex-Soviet nation's authorities "ensure his safety in prison, and provide him with appropriate medical care".

Rights groups have accused the Georgian government of using criminal prosecution to punish political opponents and critical media.

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili sparked an uproar last year when he said the government had been forced to arrest Saakashvili because he refused to quit politics.