Belarusians find precarious protection in Tbilisi

Activist from Belarus on stage talks to protestors in Tbilisi. Photo: EvaL Miko/Shutterstock

At first glance, Tbilisi offers a seemingly safe destination for the various activists, opposition figures and journalists who have left Belarus in droves following harsh crackdowns under Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations and strained post-Soviet relationship with Russia frame it a haven for those fleeing an authoritarian regime closely allied to Moscow.

Ideal destination?

Among those who have settled in Georgia is human rights activist “Ana”. She initially came to Tbilisi in April 2021 for an extended visit and decided to stay. “Around that time, the situation started escalating in Belarus,” Ana says. “The home of our organisation’s co-founder was searched … and then the Ryanair incident took place in May. At that point, I was not sure if I went back that I would be able to leave again, so I decided to stay in Tbilisi.”

Ana, who speaks on the condition of anonymity, says that in addition to Georgia’s low cost of living, its ease of accessibility for Belarusians is one of the primary reasons for its popularity. Following the forced diversion of a Ryanair passenger flight to Minsk in May 2021, which resulted in the arrest of opposition journalist Roman Pratasevich, many European countries issued sanctions and effective travel bans against Belarus. As EU-based airlines were prohibited from entering Belarusian airspace and Belarusian airlines were banned from flying within the European Union, the country’s access to its European neighbours essentially ended overnight.

Georgia, however, remains one of the few countries in the region that has not imposed a travel ban on Belarusian airlines. These continued flights, as well as the one-year visa-free stay automatically granted to citizens of Belarus when they enter Georgia, have made Tbilisi an ideal destination for the estimated 100 Belarusians that have come to the country for political reasons, as well as human rights activists like Ana who has sought to find a new base to carry out her work remotely after a large number of NGOs were dissolved by Belarusian authorities in July.  

While the Georgian government’s lack of restrictive measures towards Lukashenka’s regime has provided an important passageway for those Belarusians seeking refuge, it has also provided a precarious sense of safety. What initially seemed to be a soft stance on human rights violations in Belarus became a concerning sign of co-operation in August 2021, when an agreement between the State Security Services of Georgia (SUS) and the State Security Committee of Belarus (KGB) entered into force. This caused Belarusians in Tbilisi to ask questions regarding their supposed haven’s safety.

New opportunity to target Belarusians abroad

Days before the first anniversary of Belarus’s fraudulent presidential election, news emerged that Georgia’s SUS had exchanged diplomatic notes with the Belarusian KGB and brought into force a security agreement signed five years prior. The agreement, originally signed in 2016 when Belarus enjoyed warmer relations with the European Union, aims to “strengthen friendly relations and future co-operation” between Georgia and Belarus through “co-operation in the field of state security”. It includes provisions that allow the exchange of personal data and information related to terrorism, illegal arms trafficking, transnational organised crime, and “crimes against the constitutional order, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” of either state.

SUS representatives have attempted to assure those that are critical of the agreement that Article 5.6 allows either side to deny information requests on the grounds that “the request could infringe on human rights”, “endanger national interests”, or violate “domestic law” and “international obligations”. However, human rights defenders have expressed concern that the agreement could become a vehicle for the Belarusian authorities to target activists and journalists living in Georgia.

In a letter to the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya cautioned that Belarusian authorities had previously used “anti-terrorist legislation” to politically persecute opponents. She further argued that the only way to guarantee Belarusians’ safety in Georgia would be through “complete termination of the agreement”.

In the August statement, Amnesty International warned that the “vaguely formulated clause” of Article 5.6 does not include any “legal process or safeguards against potential human rights violations”. This gives the two states’ security services full discretion in enforcing the agreement. Whilst the United States has decided to specifically sanction the Belarusian KGB for its role in “targeting the opposition in the aftermath of the fraudulent 2020 election”, Georgia’s SUS also holds an unfavourable reputation when it comes to respecting human rights.

Notorious for its continued use of Soviet-style mass surveillance, Georgia’s SUS triggered public outrage in September 2021 when thousands of leaked documents revealed a surveillance system that extended to the clergy, NGOs, journalists, government officials and foreign diplomats. Condemned by the Georgian Public Defender’s office as a “gross violation of human rights” that “illegally interfered” in citizens’ private lives, this recent scandal is only the latest in a series of leaks that have prompted political demonstrations in front of SUS headquarters and increased animosity and distrust towards the security service.

In addition to the widespread doubt that the security service would deter potential human rights violations when implementing the agreement, many also feel that the Georgian government’s record on human rights has increasingly deteriorated in recent years. Natia Tavberidze is a project coordinator at Human Rights House Tbilisi, an umbrella organisation that houses five civil society organisations and works to support Belarusian human rights activists as they settle in Georgia. She says that the government has done little to assuage the anxiety of Belarusians living in the country.

“While the government has not openly targeted Belarusians coming to Georgia, it has also done nothing to support them. From a human rights-based approach, the Georgian government massively failed to protect human rights this year. There were violations of freedom of expression and attacks against the Tbilisi pride activists by far-right nationalists, and the state did nothing. Because of this, we cannot trust or expect that this government will do anything to protect the human rights of Belarusians here.”

Many human rights defenders have criticised the Georgian government for failing to prosecute various far-right and religious figures responsible for planning these aforementioned attacks against journalists and pride activists in July. This is despite the plethora of open-source evidence that prompted the Public Defender’s office to recommend charges to be brought against a prominent clergyman and the head of far-right ultranationalist media entity Alt-Info.

Activists also note that Georgia’s reputation for protecting political exiles was irrevocably damaged following the 2017 arrest of Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli. The political exile, who was living in Georgia at the time, was allegedly abducted and sent back to Azerbaijan with the assistance of Georgian authorities. He was then sentenced on spurious charges for his critical assessments of the Azeri government. 

Another misstep on the path to Euro-Atlantic co-operation?

In addition to a rocky human rights record in 2021, the signing of the agreement between Georgia and Belarus comes at a time when Tbilisi is facing strained relations with some of its closest allies. The timing of the agreement came in the midst of an important election season for Georgia, seen by many in the country as a referendum on the ruling Georgian Dream party. Only days before the bilateral co-operation became public knowledge, the ruling party announced that it would be withdrawing from the EU-brokered agreement of April 19th 2021, which ended months of political deadlock. The document stipulated that early parliamentary elections should be held if the ruling party failed to procure 43 per cent of the proportional vote in the 2021 municipal elections.

The withdrawal from the agreement was seen as a show of bad faith by the ruling party towards future co-operation with the opposition. It was also perceived as a rebuke of the EU involvement in Georgian domestic affairs, an issue that was further exacerbated throughout the autumn months. At the beginning of September, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili announced that the country “would not accept” EU macrofinancial assistance after it became evident that the country had failed to implement the judicial reforms required to obtain the loan. Tension further increased throughout October and November as the arrest of former President Mikheil Saakashvili prompted criticism from the EU and US representatives regarding his treatment and the political nature of the charges against him.

As analysts warn of democratic backsliding and western detachment in Georgia, former US Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly has claimed that the signing of the new security agreement amounted to the abandonment of the liberal values that have bound the country to its western allies for years. “You withdraw from an agreement brokered by the EU and double down on this agreement. Prove to us you have not cast your lot with bloody authoritarian regimes,” he challenged in an August 16th Tweet.

Kelly’s assessment echoes the feelings of human rights activists, who have warned that the Georgian Dream government has made democratic development and human rights protections secondary considerations in its pursuit of power. While Tbilisi’s reputation as a refuge for oppressed dissidents from Belarus (and increasingly Russia) remains intact, its own democratic identity crisis and increasingly ambiguous relationship with the West is casting a shadow over its allure. For the Belarusian exiles that have found safety in Georgia, this realisation has caused a worrying sense of uncertainty in their new home.

Mackenzie Baldinger is a contributing editor with New Eastern Europe and a political analyst focusing on political extremism and populism in Central and Eastern Europe. She holds a master’s degree in International Relations from Central European University and a Master of Arts in European Politics from Leiden University.

belarus, democratic opposition, Georgia