On January 23, 2024, the Tbilisi City Court upheld the preventive detention of the historian Akaki Chikobava, lecturer at Tbilisi State University, and translator Giorgi Khasaia, Ph.D. student at Ilia State University, arrested during the eviction of the Khatiashvili family on January 22 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

The academic communities of the two universities appealed to the court in support of their colleagues, and hundreds of professors and students, as well as local writers, translators, and publishers, signed the petition in support of Khasaia and Chikobava.

PEN Georgia joins the protest and requires the immediate release of the detained activists.