TBILISI, SEPT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Herokratia, a fictional TV series based on prison tortures and government crimes that occurred under the government of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, started broadcasting on prime time television, barely a month before Georgians vote in an acrimonious and bad-tempered election.
In the series, Mr Saakashvili, who is now the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, is portrayed as a megalomaniac living a life of opulent luxury while beatings are handed out casually, and brutally, in prisons.
The producer Goga Khaindrava, is known as a vocal opponent of Mr Saakashvili.
He said it was important to document the abuse.
“The main idea of this film is for people to really acknowledge what kind of disaster we went through,” he was quoted by journalists as saying. “People don’t know what kind of hell some people went through.”
The series has been paid for by former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s richest man and Mr Saakashvili’s sworn opponent, and is being broadcast on his son’s TV stations.
Mr Ivanishvili has previously commissioned documentaries on brutality in prison under Mr Saakashvili’s administration. The timing appears designed to undermine the remnants of his UNM party ahead of a parliamentary election in October.
Ketino, the owner of a bakery shop, said that during Mr Saakashvili’s period in power people lived in constant fear.
“It is necessary to show what this beast did, as it was necessary after WWII to show what the Fascists and the Nazis did in order not to forget,” she said.
Lasha, a 35 years old resident of Tbilisi, said the beatings were commonly known among people.
“Everybody knew what was going on in our prisons and still, the Americans sand the EU did nothing,” he said.
Mr Saakashvili is perceived in Georgia as being too pro-EU and US and too anti-Russia.
He was blamed for taking Georgia into a disastrous five-day war against Russia in 2008.
Investigations have shown that beatings did take place in prisons under Mr Saakashvili’s administration. Some officials have been imprisoned and the authorities have said that they want Mr Saakashvili to stand trial.
