The trends identified in December are as follows:
 

• In xenophobic statements, foreign citizens were seen as a threat to Georgia, and marriages of Georgian women to foreigners were seen as a national tragedy. As in previous months, ethnic minorities in the labor market were seen as competitors of Georgians. The old claim that only Russia can protect Georgia from the expansionist aims of Turkey and Azerbaijan persisted.
• Turkophobic remarks included a claim by an Asaval-Dasavali journalist that the previous government had falsified history by erasing evidence of Turkey’s enmity from the memorial dedicated to the Battle of Khresili.
• One case of Armenophobic commentary was aimed at discrediting individual members of an opposition political party by emphasizing their Armenian identity.
• The statements discriminating on religious grounds were a mixture of anti-Catholic and Islamophobic comments. The latter considered the lobbying of the interests of the Muslim community in the parliament unacceptable and presented homosexuality as an obscenity characteristic of the Muslim world. Anti-Catholic comments criticized the Pope for his support of homosexuals.
• The homophobic narrative included extremist statements by representatives of the clergy and the Alt-Info/Conservative Movement, justifying violence against LGBTQIA+ individuals while continuing to praise the anti-homosexual law adopted in Russia as exemplary. They viewed homophobia, incest, and pedophilia on the same level, manipulatively linking them together, and criticized the creative sector for spreading LGBT propaganda. In one case, a shooting at Prague’s Charles University was linked to LGBT ideology.
• A member of the Georgian Dream political party accused the West of fighting traditional identity and imposing false values. Similar narratives intensified after Georgia was granted EU candidate status. It was claimed that this status was only celebrated by LGBTQIA+ people because the EU would strengthen their rights and financial situation and intensify the struggle against traditional identity. The arrest of a man for burning the EU flag was assessed as a European directive and a double-standard approach to freedom of expression.

• Sexist hate speech was directed at female politicians and human rights defenders, ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili’s mother, Giuli Alasania, and female singers.

In some xenophobic statements, ethnic minorities were presented as a threat, and for this reason, it was considered unacceptable for Georgian women to marry foreigners and have children with them. The message that foreigners compete with Georgians in the labor market could be heard again.

Teodore Gignadze, Archpriest: “One Georgian woman married in Iran, and her offspring, her grandson, caused great damage to Georgia. Moreover, she raised him herself. You know how dearly grandmothers love their grandchildren. So Shah Abbas, who spoke Georgian perfectly, was brought up with love. Georgian was the first language he started to speak. This is the tragedy of our Georgian nation, or, if you like, of a Georgian woman.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “Our country is already overcrowded with Iranians and thousands of other foreigners. All this affects our labor market as well. They say that new jobs will appear, but they will be taken by people who came from.”

Dito Chubinidze, Sezoni TV co-host: “Arabs beat up Georgians, and there was a big mess. Some boy was screaming desperately… My blood froze in my veins when I heard this boy, a Georgian boy, shouting loudly that this was what they were doing to us… calling for people to come out and protest against this… I saw this as the scream of a desperate Georgia - a cry similar to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” We, Georgians, must wake up or we will be thrown out of this country.”
 
Dito Chubinidze, Sezoni TV co-host: “According to last year’s data, only 30% of pregnant women in Georgia were Georgians, the rest were non-Georgians… We will be thrown out of here… As they threw us out of Abkhazia, they will throw us out of Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia.

Presenters of Sezoni TV accused the former government of falsifying history at the behest of Turkey and the USA by erasing the word “Turk” from the memorial dedicated to the Battle of Khresili. Citizens of Turkey were presented as a threat, and marriage with them was seen as something unacceptable. Russia was once again labelled as the force that was able to contain Turkish expansion in the region.

Dito Chubinidze, journalist of Asaval-Dasavali: “I also wonder how much the scoundrel [Mikheil] Saakashvili and his local clique were paid by their European, Turkish, or American partners for falsifying history when, during the rule of the United National Movement, the inscription [on the monument] erected in the valley of Khresili was scraped off and the mention of “Turk” was shamefully erased from the text.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “Nobody is against a mosque, but it should not be built with Turkish money; we have Muslim brothers and nobody can deny it, but it [mosque] should not be built with Turkish money…”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “Georgian women used to throw themselves off a cliff to avoid marrying foreigners, but today 800 women marry Turkish men every year… Instead of throwing themselves off the cliff, they jump into their cars.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “Turks dominate on Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue; they take Georgian girls, striptease, prostitution and other obscenities take place, and we just quietly watch that. Davit [Aghmashenebeli] defeated the Seljuk Turks, but we brought their descendants and gave them the Avenue. This is the irony of fate.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “If Russia disintegrates, I wonder if any sober-minded person thinks that Turkey (or neighboring countries) will allow us to return Abkhazia and Samachablo, and Turkey will just stand idle by, waiting for Georgia… Only Russia can make sure that it [Turkey] does not take over Adjara, but if this barrier of Russia is removed, Erdogan will enter Batumi the very next day.”

Giorgi Gurgulia, actor and film director: “People are in his [Mikheil Saakashvili’s] political party for money, and most of their supporters are Armenians with altered surnames.”

Reproduction of ethnic Azerbaijanis was seen as a demographic problem for Georgia, while being under Russia’s protection was seen as a way of defense against Azerbaijan.

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “Today, only non-Georgians are reproduced in Georgia… Today, in Georgia, the process of greatest reproduction is among the Azerbaijani ethnos.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “After you settle the issue with Russia, they will not be able to seize Gareji from you or to oppress Herelians… Russia needs Georgia as a support, and we must change our politics.”

Giorgi Kharibegashvili, Conservative Movement: “Today, the Pope has become an LGBT activist; this is not something I made up. Moreover, just imagine, the Pope, the current Pope of Rome, is one of the representatives of the Jesuit Order, and Jesuits are the most conservative among Catholics, and the Pope from the most conservative faction of the most conservative organization has himself become an LGBT activist. What one can say, after all!”

Dito Chubinidze, Sezoni TV co-host: “There is Tariel Nakaidze in the parliament… He was elected on the party list of Bokeria. This snake snuck into the Parliament of Georgia, and now he says that he does not care about Georgian churches and monasteries in Tao-Klarjeti and that mosques should be opened in Georgia… His name needs to be altered, and he should be called Jalal al-Din Nakaidze or Shah Abbas Nakaidze… Who if not such people would Bokeria put in the parliament? Only such people; who else!”

Dito Chubinidze, Sezoni TV co-host: “This perverted and filthy tradition was characteristic of Muslim countries, the Muslim world… Those who cannot stay within the frames and cannot remain calm, move to Turkey, get Turkish citizenship, move to Iran, get Iranian citizenship, but these relations are punishable by death according to today’s Sharia law, and maybe you will be tortured, killed, and hanged by the morality police there, because immorality reigns here in Georgia, and just go away and leave us alone…”

The homophobic narratives were dominated by the claim that Georgian films and TV series spread LGBT propaganda. Among them, a phrase uttered by a child character in the TV series “My Wife’s Girlfriends” that she does not like boys was considered child gay propaganda. The Alt-Info-Conservative Movement considered the occupation of “perverted” Georgia by Russia legitimate and presented the anti-homosexuality law adopted in Russia as exemplary. In addition to them, violence against homosexuals was justified by clerics. The armed attack that killed 15 people on December 21 at Charles University in Prague was discussed in a homophobic context.  

Shota Martinenko, Conservative Movement: “Is not it a violation of the right of the child who is in the film [My Wife’s Girlfriends]?... The fact that she is forced to say a text about these things, a text that completely normalizes pederasty, is it not a violation of the rights of this child? […] We will ban it! I am not pinning hopes on anyone else. By ‘we’ I mean conservatives and normal, healthy people, and let me warn those people who are now doing this kind of things that they will all be punished!”
 
Shalva Ramishvili, POSTV host: “One of the superheroes [in the TV series The Eternals] has a wife or  husband of the same sex. A man has a man… This trend seems to be strong and will continue. We have seen such animated films…”
 
Giorgi Kharibegashvili, Conservative Movement: “Why the sellers in bookstores are either effeminate boys or girls who do not look like women, people of some neutral gender? Because they want books, intelligence, and sexual uncertainty to be associated with each other, that's what they inculcate.”

Dito Chubinidze, journalist of Asaval-Dasavali: “It is precisely the ramification of the death of God, i.e., this new ideology, gay-fascism, and LGBT dictatorship, that David Kozak killed students in the center of Prague…”

Giorgi Kardava, Conservative Movement: “Why should Abkhazia be shown to you, who reason like this? Or why should not even what you have be taken away from you? If I were a Russian now, why should I not seize everything from the descendants of these pederasts and whores? Why, after all, should you own anything?! If there were no healthy people left in this country, if there were no Church and no prospects of turning all these things around, and if there were no possibility of pushing you out, why should such a country exist after all?”

Basil Akhvlediani, Archpriest: “If you issue a law obliging us to respect this sodomite abomination, you will directly assault the faith, don’t you? And you oppose Orthodox Christians and oppose 80% of your nation, and naturally, among these 80%, there are 5%-10% fighters and someone who will become the leader of these fighters, and suppose there will be some bloodshed, or confrontation or disturbance. This will inevitably happen if things continue like this.”
 
Giorgi Kardava, Conservative Movement: “We need to realize that we have to ‘never condemn violence’; these pederasts do not condemn violence, and why should I condemn? … To not redraw centuries of history and completely deny everything for which thousands of Georgians, the saints, gave their lives, for which we organized the 5^th of July… that’s what we are expected to condemn for fear that some liberals may call me an offender – that’s nonsense, folks! Either we win or they will win - it is as simple as that.”

Zura Makharadze, presenter of Alt-Info: ”Let me add that when they protested against the Russian law, I will now openly say which Russian law I support: the Supreme Court of Russia banned the LGBT movement, and we intend to adopt this Russian law.”

Zura Makharadze, presenter of Alt-Info: ”This is a society of pedophiles. Someone will declare or come up to you and say that if you do not interfere with two adults, two pederasts, or two lesbians, there is a mother and a child, both of legal age, and why do you interfere in their private lives? They want to have sexual relations, and logically, if you are in this logical paradigm, what is your answer then? If you have no objective separation of virtue and vice, no truth, and only perceptions, you cannot really answer that question.”

After Georgia received the status of candidate, anti-Western comments intensified in various directions. According to the prevailing opinion, the status would increase LGBT propaganda, acceptance of an obscene lifestyle, and the fight against traditional identity. The authors of these comments also claimed that the status was only celebrated by the LGBTQIA+ community. The arrest of a supporter of the pro-Russian Alt-Info for burning an EU flag hoisted on the Mtskheta City Hall building was assessed as a European directive and a double-standard approach to freedom of expression.

Oleg Iadze, Georgian Dream: “For more than 30 years, the West has been brainwashing Georgian people. The aim of this experiment is to make us forget centuries-old traditions, morals, culture, and heroic past and to instill false values in us.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “They will force us to adopt laws; nobody knows whether it is good or bad because they pressurized us before, but after getting this status, they will pressurize us ten times harder. They will tell us to adopt this or that, and if the government does not resist, they may organize a gay pride not on Rustaveli Avenue, but in the parliament...”

Tristan Tsitelashvili, military expert: “A small group, fascist LGBT organizations, are celebrating. All this is favorable to them. They should celebrate because it is their budget that will increase…”
 
Giorgi Kardava, Conservative Movement: “Who was really happy about this status… really, sincerely rejoiced, who are the main beneficiaries … these people, organizers of Tbilisi Pride, that is, pederasts in the full sense of this word… they are bosses of pederasts, the key pederasts - no, the key pederasts are in Brussels and Washington - but the local key pederasts, and they do seem genuinely happy about that status.”

Shota Martinenko, Conservative Movement: “For decades, they have made us accustomed to tolerating offenses to religious feelings; they were telling us that it fits within the standard of freedom of speech, telling us that we may not like that our traditions, our values, and our nation are offended, but we have to tolerate it because freedom of speech demands it… Then they moved to the stage where, at the behest of the EU, they explicitly demanded that the offense of their feelings be made punishable. This was a decision of the EU; it happened after their directive that a fine [for burning a flag] was imposed and then imprisonment was applied.”
 
Lasha Sharukhia, an individual detained for burning the flag: “If you ask me whether I burned the EU flag or not, I will say that yes, I burned it, I proudly admit it and I fulfilled the will of God. When I see that in my country religion is prohibited in schools and sexology lessons are introduced, that Georgian families break up because of quarrels between spouses and husbands are arrested for that, that gays and LGBT are being promoted, and so on and so forth... this can be considered a war, a war against the anti-Christ, and in my holy city of Mtskheta, I struck a serious blow with God’s blessing… I burned, melted, and destroyed the EU flag, making it disappear, as it is the cause of all this immorality and brought on us this obscenity and filth.”

Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “When I arrived there [in Russia], I saw the Georgia of my childhood… People wear normal clothes; a woman looks like a woman, a man looks like a man, and I saw something that we lack, because there is hell here; America has created hell in Georgia.”

Giorgi Kharibegashvili, Conservative movement: “Their fantasy has no limits, and in the West it has come to the point where women are suing men for rape 25 years ago, or sexual violence or sexual harassment, and men have to prove that they did not rape these women 25 or 30 years ago. That’s how absolutely ridiculous it all is.”
 
 Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “They have portrayed the Georgian man as an offender… Saakashvili’s slogan was ‘all to prison’ and it was the slogan of Americans; now the slogan is ‘all men to prison.’ This slogan was introduced under the current government.”

In December, sexist hate speech was directed against President Zourabichvili, female politicians from the political opposition, and human rights defenders. Singers Irma Sokhadze, who spoke about sex education in schools, and Nani Bregvadze, who was planning to participate in the LGBT event called the Drag Ball, were also targets of the sexist hate speech.

Shota Khabareli, Georgian Dream: “You [addressing Irakli Medzmariashvili] better be polite yourself; you are cursing like a woman.”

Dito Chubinidze, Sezoni TV co-host: “How could this woman, this schizophrenic, this schizoid woman be elected? Look how she behaved… Or how poorly she speaks Georgian - why cannot she, this woman, learn Georgian after all? It is a disaster. Over this period of time, even a mediocre person could have learned Chinese.”

Basil Mkalavishvili, clergyman: “Mrs. Nani, why are you going to a gay pride at your old age?”
 
Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, Sezoni TV host: “Our Irma Sokhadze really wants to become a sexual teacher; no, not a sexual teacher but a sex teacher, because due to her age she cannot become a sexual teacher.”
 
Dito Chubinidze, Sezoni TV co-host: “Mrs. Nani [Bregvadze]. Let me ask you: where are you, an elderly lady, going? Do you want to see Elton Chkonia there wearing a dress? What the hell? Where are you going, Mrs. Nani? Where?”