David Zedelashvili
@dzedelashvili.bsky.social
Constitutional lawyer and scholar. Commentator on matters constitutional. Eurasia, Russia, CEE, Illiberal and Authoritarian regimes.
European constitutional standards only allow states to set the number of seats per degree and fair rules for accessing them. Centralized assignment of specializations to public HEIs clearly violates academic freedom and HEI autonomy.
Georgia’s Education Ministry sparked immediate backlash on Thursday after announcing which faculties state universities would retain under its controversial higher education reform.
Georgia reshuffles university faculties, sparking criticism
The process is part of a controversial higher education reform.
oc-media.org
February 12, 2026 at 4:23 PM
European constitutional standards only allow states to set the number of seats per degree and fair rules for accessing them. Centralized assignment of specializations to public HEIs clearly violates academic freedom and HEI autonomy.
Reposted by David Zedelashvili
A new draconian legislative package that vaguely defines a ‘foreign grant’ is placing anyone tangentially related to politics at risk of imprisonment.
🔗 Read the full opinion: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
🔗 Read the full opinion: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
January 30, 2026 at 2:28 PM
A new draconian legislative package that vaguely defines a ‘foreign grant’ is placing anyone tangentially related to politics at risk of imprisonment.
🔗 Read the full opinion: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
🔗 Read the full opinion: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
Reposted by David Zedelashvili
Georgia’s Regime Has Given Critics a Choice: Prison or Exile
by @dzedelashvili.bsky.social
@ocmedia.bsky.social
“A new draconian legislative package that vaguely defines a ‘foreign grant’ is placing anyone tangentially related to politics at risk of imprisonment.”
🔗: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
by @dzedelashvili.bsky.social
@ocmedia.bsky.social
“A new draconian legislative package that vaguely defines a ‘foreign grant’ is placing anyone tangentially related to politics at risk of imprisonment.”
🔗: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
January 30, 2026 at 4:07 PM
Georgia’s Regime Has Given Critics a Choice: Prison or Exile
by @dzedelashvili.bsky.social
@ocmedia.bsky.social
“A new draconian legislative package that vaguely defines a ‘foreign grant’ is placing anyone tangentially related to politics at risk of imprisonment.”
🔗: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
by @dzedelashvili.bsky.social
@ocmedia.bsky.social
“A new draconian legislative package that vaguely defines a ‘foreign grant’ is placing anyone tangentially related to politics at risk of imprisonment.”
🔗: oc-media.org/opinion-geor...
Occasionally, I emerge from the wilderness to comment on Georgian affairs—mostly because someone in the media still remembers me as the “Georgian authoritarianism guy.”
No longer aiming to warn, only to create an interpretive record.
No longer aiming to warn, only to create an interpretive record.
January 30, 2026 at 12:35 PM
Occasionally, I emerge from the wilderness to comment on Georgian affairs—mostly because someone in the media still remembers me as the “Georgian authoritarianism guy.”
No longer aiming to warn, only to create an interpretive record.
No longer aiming to warn, only to create an interpretive record.
Commented on the internal purges inside the Ivanishvili regime with Le Monde.
1. Regime survival is the main reason of purges.
2. As the regime becomes more dependent on and tightly integrates with the Kremlin structures and networks
1. Regime survival is the main reason of purges.
2. As the regime becomes more dependent on and tightly integrates with the Kremlin structures and networks
January 22, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Commented on the internal purges inside the Ivanishvili regime with Le Monde.
1. Regime survival is the main reason of purges.
2. As the regime becomes more dependent on and tightly integrates with the Kremlin structures and networks
1. Regime survival is the main reason of purges.
2. As the regime becomes more dependent on and tightly integrates with the Kremlin structures and networks
Pity that you had to cancel the “Nations in Transit” report. This year, Georgia would have made it to the “semi-consolidated authoritarian regime” category there, on the path of rapid consolidation and stabilization.
Georgia ceased to be a democracy in any sense. Tragically.
Georgia ceased to be a democracy in any sense. Tragically.
We are deeply concerned by the Georgian government’s continued, escalating antidemocratic behavior, including the jailing of political opposition leaders and ongoing targeting of civil society groups under the country’s newly enacted foreign agents law.
(1/2)
(1/2)
Four Georgian opposition leaders were sentenced to jail for refusing to testify before a parliamentary commission launched by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is tightening its grip on power.
June 30, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Pity that you had to cancel the “Nations in Transit” report. This year, Georgia would have made it to the “semi-consolidated authoritarian regime” category there, on the path of rapid consolidation and stabilization.
Georgia ceased to be a democracy in any sense. Tragically.
Georgia ceased to be a democracy in any sense. Tragically.
Reposted by David Zedelashvili
A very good read with my humble contributions thepolitic.org/georgias-las...
Georgia’s Last Stand: Poets, Protesters, and the Fight Against Russian Rule - The Politic
On July 22, 1937, at the height of Stalin’s Great Purge, the poet Paolo Iashvili walked into the Writer’s House in Tbilisi, now a sanctuary for Georgia’s literary elite, then a courtroom of fear. The ...
thepolitic.org
March 26, 2025 at 6:27 PM
A very good read with my humble contributions thepolitic.org/georgias-las...
Interested in how authoritarian regime penetrates, compromises and captures society ? By making people complicit in their crimes.
This is the social-economic model of authoritarianism that does not have minerals or resources to survive. When you can’t plunder oil money, you steal abroad.
This is the social-economic model of authoritarianism that does not have minerals or resources to survive. When you can’t plunder oil money, you steal abroad.
March 16, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Interested in how authoritarian regime penetrates, compromises and captures society ? By making people complicit in their crimes.
This is the social-economic model of authoritarianism that does not have minerals or resources to survive. When you can’t plunder oil money, you steal abroad.
This is the social-economic model of authoritarianism that does not have minerals or resources to survive. When you can’t plunder oil money, you steal abroad.
🧵In my previous academic work, I have argued that the post-Soviet Georgian elites’ choice of illiberal democracy as a preferred political regime for Georgia was deliberate and conscious. /1
March 15, 2025 at 4:17 PM
🧵In my previous academic work, I have argued that the post-Soviet Georgian elites’ choice of illiberal democracy as a preferred political regime for Georgia was deliberate and conscious. /1
Hans has been vocal on this issue for a long time. This needs to be taken seriously in Germany. The reputation of German legal education is at stake.
If this isn't a scandal, I don't know what is -- in the midst of the authoritarian assault, Dec 2024, German Law Prof publishes a piece praising M Turava, Chief Constitutional Court judge, who's been a key perpetrator.
Still serves on board w other perpetrators, incl Min of Justice.
Still serves on board w other perpetrators, incl Min of Justice.
March 13, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Hans has been vocal on this issue for a long time. This needs to be taken seriously in Germany. The reputation of German legal education is at stake.
After the PACE resolution conditioning their membership in the assembly on new elections, halting repression, and releasing political prisoners, the Ivanishvili regime decided to quit PACE.
January 29, 2025 at 7:29 PM
After the PACE resolution conditioning their membership in the assembly on new elections, halting repression, and releasing political prisoners, the Ivanishvili regime decided to quit PACE.
Six UN Special rapporteurs have issued joint statement today calling for urgent investigation into systematic torture and inhuman treatment of protesters in Georgia.
January 28, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Six UN Special rapporteurs have issued joint statement today calling for urgent investigation into systematic torture and inhuman treatment of protesters in Georgia.
Ivanishvili regime is enacting a properly Stalinist public execution show of this brave woman. In the footsteps of its patron Kremlin regime it brings back vile totalitarian practices.
This needs to stop. 🛑
This needs to stop. 🛑
Dear Georgia watchers and defenders of freedom worldwide, help us spread the word about Mzia Amaglobeli, a female journalist, who's on the 17th day of her hunger strike, surviving only on water. Her act of defiance is a refusal to accept the agenda of a Russian regime 🧵1/
January 28, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Ivanishvili regime is enacting a properly Stalinist public execution show of this brave woman. In the footsteps of its patron Kremlin regime it brings back vile totalitarian practices.
This needs to stop. 🛑
This needs to stop. 🛑
Reposted by David Zedelashvili
It’s the first time in my career—and I’ve been a journalist for 9 years—that I’m holding a protest banner in my hands. Congrats, GD. You’ve done it; you’ve erased all the lines between journalism and activism for us.
FREEDOM FOR MZIA AMAGLOBELI!
FREEDOM FOR MZIA AMAGLOBELI!
January 27, 2025 at 5:33 PM
It’s the first time in my career—and I’ve been a journalist for 9 years—that I’m holding a protest banner in my hands. Congrats, GD. You’ve done it; you’ve erased all the lines between journalism and activism for us.
FREEDOM FOR MZIA AMAGLOBELI!
FREEDOM FOR MZIA AMAGLOBELI!
Since the Russian law protests in the spring, the regime has criminally prosecuted 46 political prisoners. To compare, in the USSR of the 70s-80s, the annual number of political prisoners in the union never exceeded 90.
December 24, 2024 at 7:20 PM
Since the Russian law protests in the spring, the regime has criminally prosecuted 46 political prisoners. To compare, in the USSR of the 70s-80s, the annual number of political prisoners in the union never exceeded 90.
My inboxes are getting hit by messages asking whether I'm still at liberty. Even though I have long expected this hell unleash in #Georgia it still feels surreal to answer those well regarded inquiries, that as it stands, the regime still has not yet arrived at my doors. 😊
December 4, 2024 at 4:25 PM
My inboxes are getting hit by messages asking whether I'm still at liberty. Even though I have long expected this hell unleash in #Georgia it still feels surreal to answer those well regarded inquiries, that as it stands, the regime still has not yet arrived at my doors. 😊
Ivanishvili's quisling regime has isolated #Georgia alienated its allies and undermined its sovereignty for the benefit of Russia. Georgian people are once again at war against Russia's imperial domination with a quisling regime of Ivanishvili.
It is urgent to sanction Russia's puppet Ivanishvili.
It is urgent to sanction Russia's puppet Ivanishvili.
November 30, 2024 at 8:20 PM
Ivanishvili's quisling regime has isolated #Georgia alienated its allies and undermined its sovereignty for the benefit of Russia. Georgian people are once again at war against Russia's imperial domination with a quisling regime of Ivanishvili.
It is urgent to sanction Russia's puppet Ivanishvili.
It is urgent to sanction Russia's puppet Ivanishvili.
Russia's quisling regime in Tbilisi has unleashed a brutal wave of mass repression against the Georgian people. This is not just "disproportionate force." Words, especially legal terms, matter. It would imply that some modicum of legitimacy remains;
November 30, 2024 at 6:18 PM
Russia's quisling regime in Tbilisi has unleashed a brutal wave of mass repression against the Georgian people. This is not just "disproportionate force." Words, especially legal terms, matter. It would imply that some modicum of legitimacy remains;
Tomorrow, Ivanishvili's regime will enact a stint of self-legitimation in flagrant breach of the constitution and parliamentary rules of procedure.
November 24, 2024 at 1:33 PM
Tomorrow, Ivanishvili's regime will enact a stint of self-legitimation in flagrant breach of the constitution and parliamentary rules of procedure.
Georgian regime has intensified violent repression.Tents of protesters have been removed. Protesters have been beaten or detained. Regime eagerly wields its huge repressive apparatus. Opponents need a clear strategy to counter this, or developments similar to those in Belarus will become inevitable.
November 19, 2024 at 6:43 AM
Georgian regime has intensified violent repression.Tents of protesters have been removed. Protesters have been beaten or detained. Regime eagerly wields its huge repressive apparatus. Opponents need a clear strategy to counter this, or developments similar to those in Belarus will become inevitable.
I kept this account dormant for some time. With increased population on this platform, I will probably begin using it as a clone account for my content on X. And we will see where this leads.
November 17, 2024 at 8:23 AM
I kept this account dormant for some time. With increased population on this platform, I will probably begin using it as a clone account for my content on X. And we will see where this leads.