By Irma Dimitradze

2026 did not arrive quietly. In Georgia, it arrived with a growing number of political prisoners, a frozen European future, and a country sliding toward authoritarian rule.

For me, that reality has a name: Mzia Amaglobeli. One year ago, my mentor and close friend became Georgia’s first female journalist political prisoner. She was abused, assaulted, denied justice and held through a 38-day hunger strike that cost her most of her eyesight. From that moment on, my life and my country changed forever.

The collapse of Georgia’s democracy did not happen overnight. Nor was it an isolated assault. It is part of a larger war, visible when Russia launched Europe’s largest war since WWII in Ukraine, and even before that, through disinformation, propaganda and hybrid warfare.

This is a war against the rule-of-law world order itself – one that seeks to re-draw borders, crush democratic institutions and reshape our lives.

Western democracies, like Georgians, underestimated its power. They believed they were too strong, too democratic; we believed we were too resilient. We were wrong.

In Georgia, propaganda tells people that the European Union is weak in this global struggle, and that pursuing EU integration will bring Russian tanks and rockets, as in 2008. Fear has been weaponised.

However, the result is over 410 days of continuous protest. People are demanding their stolen country back after rigged elections, captured courts, mass surveillance and repressive laws. The regime grows more inventive in crushing dissent, but resistance continues.

Georgia was never perfect, but it built a vibrant civil society, a growing free media and liberal laws. After receiving EU candidate status, it was suddenly thrown off a cliff, transforming into a repressive state where people are jailed for protesting, journalists are criminalised, civil servants are fired for dissent, and protesters are allegedly poisoned with chemicals.

Since 28 November 2024, when the ruling party ‘Georgian Dream’ froze Georgia’s EU path, the country has been rapidly refashioned into a laboratory of authoritarian rule. Destruction is always faster than building.

Europe may feel sympathy, but this is not just Georgia’s loss. It is yours too. This is how authoritarianism spreads, country by country, until it reshapes the world order itself.

As 2026 begins, one thing is clear. The old rules no longer protect us. While Europe hesitated, authoritarianism advanced. Now the question is no longer whether the world will change, but whether it will be shaped by those who defend democracy or by those who destroy it.

Tonight, in the last hours of 11 January, together with my colleagues, I stood in the freezing air outside Rustavi women’s prison, where Mzia Amaglobeli, now a Sakharov Prize laureate, remains unjustly imprisoned. Exactly one year ago, at this same hour, she was first unlawfully detained for putting up a poster in protest against arbitrary arrests for the same form of expression.

Less than one month ago, I was in Strasbourg, attending meetings and giving interviews on Mzia’s behalf. Her message to the EU was urgent and simple: act now and act effectively. Use all tools at your disposal. We live in a new reality that allows no luxury to delay.

Mzia ended her letter with the words, ‘I believe in a democratic, strong Europe’. For Georgians, this belief is not symbolic. It costs freedom, safety and lives. Europe must now decide: honor it, or abandon those who hold it.

Irma Dimitradze is a journalist and Communications Manager at Gazeti Batumelebi, a Georgian media organisation co-founded in 2001 by Sakharov Prize 2025 laureate Mzia Amaglobeli. She led an investigative report exposing the ruling party’s access to tens of thousands of voters’ sensitive personal data, which should only be collected by state institutions. Ms Dimitradze advocates internationally for Georgian press freedom and for Mzia Amaglobeli, the country’s first female journalist political prisoner since 1991.