Georgian government officials raided the homes of local staff of an American think tank who work on tracking Russian disinformation, raising alarm among prodemocracy activists, civil society groups and some U.S. officials ahead of Georgia’s Oct. 26 parliamentary elections.
Investigators targeted local staff in Tbilisi of the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., that is known for promoting democratic values and institutions, particularly in Eastern Europe.
The investigations unit of Georgia’s Finance Ministry searched the homes of Sopo Gelava and Eto Buziashvili, both staff members with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab, known also as DFRLab. The two have authored reports on how Russia is carrying out overt and covert influence operations to sway the upcoming elections in favor of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
“The Atlantic Council is deeply concerned about this development and its impact on our staff’s work shortly before Georgian elections,” Graham Brookie, the Atlantic Council’s vice president for technology programs and strategy and senior director of the DFRLab, said in a statement.
“Our Georgian colleagues, Sopo Gelava and Eto Buziashvili, are engaged in independent, non-partisan work aimed at defending and strengthening democracy from those who would undermine it in online spaces, including research related to foreign influence efforts, the targeting of marginalized communities, and other online harms.”
Brookie said that Buziashvili and Gelava had their electronic devices confiscated but were not detained, nor were they charged by Georgian authorities.
The Hill has reached out to the Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia for comment.
Buziashvili, in an interview with Georgian news outlet Formula, said that she had been summoned for questioning and that “they mentioned that they are interested in, is my organization, which is the Atlantic Council, an American nongovernmental organization. We are investigating Russian information operations in detail,” she said.
The search of her home came one day after she published a report with the Atlantic Council titled “Russia is directly and indirectly meddling in Georgia’s upcoming election.”
Georgians will go to the polls on Oct. 26 in high-stakes elections between the incumbent, pro-Russian Georgian Dream party and opposition parties that want closer ties with Europe and the U.S.
The news site Civil Georgia reported that Gelava said the ministry’s investigative service said it was looking into alleged tax evasion by the company hired by the Atlantic Council for employment contracts. But she raised concern that the home raid came three days before the elections. She also highlighted that her work is directly related to politics, research on Russian disinformation and the country’s influence in Georgia.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, said the searched raised concerns about “Georgia’s ability to conduct free and fair elections” in a statement provided to The Hill.
“The Georgian people and its civil society have the right to have their voices heard and respected — a central tenet of any healthy democratic system. I hope that the Government of Georgia will look into these specific reports and take them seriously,” she said.