False information about one of the leaders of the Girchi political party, Iago Khvichia, is disseminated on Facebook. A Facebook publication, made on 3 January 2023, contains Iago Khvichia’s photograph with the following words: “You should not beat your wife, but if you do beat her, make sure you beat her good enough until the end of life!” The photograph leads to the impression that Mr Khvichia actually did post these words on his Facebook account. In addition, the author of the publication claims that he took the screenshot from Iago Khvichia’s Facebook page. On 6 January 2023, the same Facebook user once again made a publication in the name of Iago Khvichia’s official Facebook page, claiming that Girchi plans to sell certificates of Biblical Freedom to Russian males and protect them from being drafted into the army in this manner. 

In both cases, publications made by the Mriskhane Babuatsvera (Angry Dandelion) account are fake and these statements do not belong to Iago Khvichia. The latter has two Facebook accounts, personal and official ones (see photographs). 

On 6 January 2023, Iago Khvichia made a statement on his official account in regard to these disinformation publications and referred to the Mriskhane Babuatsvera account as a promoter of fake news. In addition, Iago Khvichia’s Facebook account’s name is written in Georgian letters in the screenshot published by Mriskhane Babuatsvera. In reality, he does not have a Facebook account with the name written in Georgian letters. Therefore, the publications made by the Mriskhane Babuatsvera account are fake and Iago Khvichia has not made such publications on his personal or official Facebook pages. 

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