According to reports, Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvilli agreed on Friday to end a fifty day hunger strike and has been transferred to a military hospital in order to receive treatment. Reportedly, Mikheil Saakashvilli who was president of Georgia between 2004-2013, was minister for justice in Eduard Shevardnazde’s government before founding the United national movement. His presidency was characterised as western and pro european.
According to a report, in 2013 he took up a position as a lecturer in the united states. Reportedly, in 2014 he was charged in his absence with exceeding official powers during a 2007 political protest, and involving a police raid and the seizure of Imedia tv, a news channel and other assets. Reportedly, his bank accounts were frozen and he was arrested on entering Georgia in October 2021.
Georgia, who have a long history of turkish and persian oppression were annexed by the russian empire during the nineteenth Century. The first president of post soviet Georgia was Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a philologist, literary critic and political reformist. Reportedly, in 1958 he was arrested and confined for six months in a mental hospital where he was diagnosed as suffering from psychopathy, resulted in accusations of using psychiatry for political purposes. Eduard Shevardnezde replaced him following a coup.