​Home of Bassiani co-founder raided amidst political unrest in Georgia

The home of Bassiani's co-founder Tato Getia was allegedly raided by Georgian police earlier this week, amidst political unrest across the country.

The Tbilisi-based nightclub shared the news on Instagram on Tuesday (April 29) alleging that Getia’s home was raided in the early hours of the morning.

Getia’s pregnant wife and child were both at home at the time of the raid, the statement explains, calling it an indicator of a “strengthening violent practice” carried out by police. His wife later shared a video on social media, showing police inside her home, as per Resident Advisor.

The alleged raid follows recent political unrest in the country. In October, mass protests took place across Georgia following a controversial win for populist political party Georgian Dream, who received a 54% split of the votes despite exit polls across news media suggesting that certain opposition parties would win.

Read this next: Tbilisi nightclub Bassiani hosts rally in protest of Georgian election results

Bassiani hosted a rally outside the Georgian parliament shortly after the results were confirmed, calling on its community to join the club in protest and “take back the future that was stolen and forged”.

In a statement shared on Tuesday, the club explained: “Funds, which help victims of protests, political prisoners and their families, are constantly attacked.”

“Police raid the houses of representatives of these organizations with false accusations and a search that started with a "sabotage article" aims to intimidate the community and suppress solidarity.”

The club notes that it has now been more than 150 days since protests were sparked in Tbilisi, which have been “followed by forging people's free will in the elections, stopping Georgia's Eurointegration process, increasing Russian influence and unprecedented punitive policies aimed at suppressing protests,” they say.

Last summer, nationwide protests also took place across Georgia in opposition of a proposed law on the “Transparency of Foreign Influence", which requires NGOs to disclose their income if more than 20% of any funding they receive is from outside Georgia.

Read this next: Massive Attack pull out of Georgia gig in solidarity with anti-government protestors

The bill, which was established to “protect Georgia’s sovereignty from foreign influences”, was compared to the Russian foreign agent law.

In solidarity with the protests taking place at the time, Massive Attack pulled out of their scheduled show at Black Sea Arena, while Saguramo-based festival 4GB called off its annual event, saying it would be “unjustified to hold a festival at this time”.

“Georgian society has endured an unprecedented wave of injustice and endured it,” Bassiani explain. “In response, the illegitimate government adopted dozens of repressive laws, which completely denied the country's constitution and completely destroyed the fundamental principles of a fair state.”

“One of the most alarming ‘foreign agent registration act’ - an even stricter version of Russian law, which labels foreign-funded organizations as enemies. This bill, together with the ‘Grants Law’, sharply restricts the functioning of both civil society and independent media.”

Read Bassiani’s full statement below.

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on Twitter