The brutal killing of popular Georgian transgender model Kesaria Abramidze was exactly what European Union, United States officials, and LGBTQ activists feared would happen after a second draconian anti-LGBTQ law was passed this month. Leaders in the former Soviet country continued their "Russian-styled" anti-LGBTQ cultural war and legal campaign ahead of October elections.
Throughout the year, government officials and human rights activists have raised concern with Georgian officials about dangerous anti-LGBTQ political rhetoric and laws in the transcontinental country that bridges Asia and Europe. Ruling-party Georgian Dream leaders ignored the warnings and forged ahead, passing on September 17 the Law of Georgia on Family Values and Protection of Minors, the country's second anti-LGBTQ law this year. The following day, Abramidze was killed.
The United Nations, U.S., and the E.U. responded by criticizing Georgian officials, slapping more restrictions on the country, and shunning Georgia's delegation this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Abramidze's death
Abramidze, 37, was killed in her home in Didi Digomi, a district of Tbilisi, Georgia's capital city, on September 18.
Neighbors found the popular model's lifeless body with multiple stab wounds after hearing screams coming from her apartment, reported Politico.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced in a September 19 statement to reporters about the investigation into Abramidze's death that they arrested her ex-boyfriend, Beka Djaiani, 26, on suspicion of "premeditated murder committed with particular cruelty and aggravating circumstances on gender grounds," reported Al Jazeera. Djaiani was detained early in the morning that day at Kutaisi International Airport, about a three and a half hour drive from Tbilisi, reported Pink News.
The motive for the killing is unknown.
A ministry official told reporters that security cameras in Abramidze's apartment building captured Djaiani at the elevator entering the building around the time of the killing. Fifteen minutes later he was recorded quickly running down some stairs out of the building, reported JAMnews. Police also found a knife allegedly used in the incident, according to reports.
Abramidze was one of Georgia's first out transgender people. In 2018, she won the crown as Miss Trans Star International and had more than 500,000 followers on Instagram, reported The Guardian. She was a fierce advocate for women and transgender women and was critical of the Georgian government's approach to domestic violence and women's rights, according to Euractiv.
The media outlet reported that Abramidze temporarily fled Georgia in April fearing for her life after attacks from a former partner.
"No to the femicide that has become so frequent in our country!" she said, reported Euractiv.
"Kesaria was iconic!" Maia Otarashvili, a Georgian political scientist and the Eurasia program director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank based in Philadelphia, wrote on X. "Provocative, wise, incredibly brave! A trailblazer for Georgia's trans rights. She was fashionable and beautiful and would read you to filth! Her murder is an absolute shock! She did not deserve this!"
Kesaria was iconic! Provocative, wise, incredibly brave! A trailblazer for Georgia's trans rights. She was fashionable and beautiful and would read you to filth! Her murder is an absolute shock! She did not deserve this! https://t.co/WNFRVWMfFy pic.twitter.com/1hUdQrzjEK
- Maia Otarashvili (@MaiaVanRijn) September 18, 2024
Equality Movement, Georgia's largest queer organization, also mourned Abramidze's death in a statement on X.
"Equality Movement mourns the tragic murder of Kesaria Abramidze, a victim of gender-based violence that occurred just days after the adoption of a homophobic law," the organization stated. "This is a wake-up call for Georgia. We must end intolerance and protect the lives of our community."
"Equality Movement" mourns the tragic murder of Kesaria Abramidze, a victim of gender-based violence that occurred just days after the adoption of a homophobic law. This is a wake-up call for 🇬🇪. We must end intolerance and protect the lives of our community. 🕊️🏳️⚧️ #Ripkesaria pic.twitter.com/5T8ecwWKyS
- Equality Movement (@EqualityGeorgia) September 19, 2024
Mourners held a vigil for Abramidze on the steps of the Georgian Parliament Building in Tbilisi on September 20.
In the last decade, Georgia experienced three high-profile killings of transgender women: Sabi Beriani, in 2014, and Bianka Shigurova and Zizi Shekeladze in 2016, reported JAMnews.
Campaign of hate
Georgian lawmakers have been busy pushing through Russian-styled and vaguely worded anti-LGBTQ bills and have undertaken a cultural war campaign against the country's LGBTQ community this year.
The government has called Tbilisi Pride's director Tamara Jakeli a poster child for "moral degradation." Her face has been plastered on TV with captions reading, "No to moral degradation," according to Reuters. The government also declared May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia, as the day of "Purity of the Family and Respect for Parents," reported Euronews.
Massive protests opposing the bills filled the capital and other major Georgian cities this year. The demonstrations were the largest since Georgia's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, reported Reuters. The laws also drew criticism from officials from the U.N., U.S., and E.U., along with LGBTQ advocates and human rights defenders.
On June 4, Georgian lawmakers passed a "foreign agents" law requiring all nongovernmental, nonprofit, and media organizations to register with the government if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.
A majority of Georgia's organizations that fall under the law protested by not registering by the September 2 deadline, reported Euronews. Only 469 out of approximately 30,000 organizations in Georgia registered by the deadline, according to the media outlet. The organizations refuse to comply with the law due to its inspiration from Russian legislation, and threats to freedom of speech and democracy. They face fines for each month they don't register.
In June, the Georgian Dream Party immediately followed the passage of the foreign agents law with a massive legislative package, "The Law of Georgia on Family Values and Protection of Minors."
It amends 18 existing laws specifically targeting LGBTQ people, according to a 12-page joint statement issued September 16 from five U.N. special rapporteurs and Graeme Reid, the U.N. independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The experts picked apart the legality of Georgia's latest anti-LGBTQ law, which bans "freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly, the rights to privacy and family life, the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, the right to education, and the right to work," according to the statement.
The legislation effectively goes against Georgia's laws, the country's international obligations and is riddled with vague language, the U.N. experts noted.
Georgian members of Parliament voted 84-0 in a plenary session in favor of the law on its third and final reading September 17.
Mamuka Mdinaradze, chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, told Euronews that a legislative change was needed as a countermeasure to LGBTQ+ "propaganda."
"In two or three generations it can have such harmful consequences," he told the news outlet, insisting that same-sex marriage cannot be allowed and that if it were, the impact on Georgian society could be of a magnitude "that no conqueror has been able to achieve for centuries."
Reid discussed the law's impact on human rights, including LGBTQ rights, in a statement posted on LinkedIn following its passage last week.
"#Georgia's newly voted law on 'family values and the protection of minors,' imposes the most expansive restriction on human rights, including those of #LGBT people, in the last 20 years, since the Government began acceding to core human rights treaties of the United Nations," Reid wrote.
Jakeli, the Pride director, told Reuters that the new law will likely force her organization to close. Its Pride march has previously been targeted by violent attacks and, in 2023, it was forced to shut down.
She noted to the news outlet that the opposition parties aren't overly supportive of LGBTQ rights either.
The law is heading to Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili's desk. A French-born, pro-E.U. president, Zourabichvili is an independent politician who is not a member of the Dream Party.
Following Abramidze's murder, Zourabichvili vowed to veto the bill, as she did for the foreign agent law, reported Pink News. Georgian Dream Party lawmakers, who hold a majority in Parliament, threatened to overrule her if she vetoes it. The party overrode her veto of the foreign agent law earlier this year, the B.A.R. previously reported.
Standing with LGBTQ Georgians
During the U.N. General Assembly this week, the State Department targeted Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Georgian Dream Party's founder and prime minister nominee, with visa restrictions on September 22, reported RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Ivanishvili previously served as prime minister from 2012-2023. President Joe Biden disinvited Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze to a reception for world leaders he is hosting and declined all other meetings with the Georgian delegation, reported Reuters.
The U.S. is Georgia's major funder. Over 30 years, the U.S. provided $6.2 billion in financial assistance to the country, according to a July 31 State Department statement. The State and Treasury departments announced more restrictions and sanctions on individuals and family members "responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Georgia," on September 16. The State Department restricted visas of more than 60 individuals and their family members, according to a department release. The Treasury Department froze Georgian assets and bank accounts within the U.S.
This was the third round of restrictions the U.S. placed on Georgia. In July, the State Department announced that it had paused more than $95 million in assistance to Georgia. The B.A.R. previously reported, that the U.S. issued sanctions and visa restrictions in June following the Georgian Parliament's passage of the foreign agents law.
Georgia's ascension into the E.U., the world's largest trading bloc, has also been paused, reported the Associated Press.
A poll conducted by international research company Edison Research found more than 90% of Georgians support joining the E.U., and 83% support membership in NATO, the B.A.R. previously reported.
European leaders have spoken out against Abramidze's death.
"Kesaria Abramidze was killed just one day after the Georgian parliament passed the anti-LGBTI law," Michael Roth, Social Democratic party chair of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee in Germany, noted in his post on X in response to Abramidze's murder, reported The Guardian.
In the same post, he wrote, "Those who sow hatred will reap violence."
Until this year, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression were not illegal in Georgia, according to the State Department's 2023 Human Rights Country Report. However, the report noted the high level of discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people in Georgia, and authorities' failure to "adequately respond" and to uphold the country's human rights law.
Roth has been vocal in opposing Georgia's anti-LGBTQ laws and human rights violations leading up to the country's October 26 parliamentary elections and its consideration to join the E.U.
U.S. officials are monitoring the situation.
"We remain concerned about human rights abuses and anti-democratic actions in Georgia, and we will continue to consider additional actions in response," stated Secretary of State Antony Blinken September 16.
"The United States unequivocally supports the rights of Georgians to assemble, speak, and peacefully protest without fear of violence, intimidation, or suppression," Blinken continued, adding that the U.S. remains concerned about the situation and "we will continue to consider additional actions in response."
Meanwhile, Jakeli told Reuters that Tbilisi Pride will only survive if the Georgian Dream Party "were to lose power in October."
"The only way we can survive in this country and have any progress on LGBT rights is for us to go in great numbers to the elections and vote for change," she told the news outlet.
Got international LGBTQ news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at WhatsApp/Signal: 415-517-7239, or [email protected]
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