Coup Atlas Research Database
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37209062006ConspiracyDissident coup

Georgia, 2006 — dissident coup conspiracy

Georgia (GEO)Western Asia, AsiaSeptember 6, 2006

Event Summary

This entry is coded 6 September 2006, corresponding to the alleged September 2006 coup plot against President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia. On 6 September 2006 Georgian police staged pre-dawn raids across the country, deploying some 450 officers, and arrested over 30 members of the pro-Russian Samartlianoba (Justice) Party and affiliated groups such as the Conservative-Monarchist Party and the Anti-Soros Movement. Fourteen were charged with plotting to organize a violent coup to overthrow Saakashvili and bring the exiled former State Security Minister Igor Giorgadze to power, with the government also alleging illegal foreign funding and hinting that Russia had financed the plot.

Giorgadze, who had lived in exile since being accused of a 1995 assassination attempt on former President Shevardnadze, and his supporters denied the charges and called the arrests political repression timed to help Saakashvili's party ahead of the 5 October municipal elections. The 6 September 2006 coding matches these arrests.

Researched Details

Researched

Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.

Target identified in Coup Atlas research: Saakashvili's government arrested the alleged plotters ahead of the October 2006 local elections
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
President Mikheil Saakashvili (target)
exiled former State Security Minister Igor Giorgadze
Justice Party and allied opposition activists

Sources

On 6 September 2006 Georgian police arrested over 30 members of the Samartlianoba party and its political groups in a round-up in Tbilisi and elsewhere, accusing them of plotting to organize a violent coup against the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia: Igor Giorgadze open source ↗
Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said all those detained were supporters of the fugitive opposition leader Igor Giorgadze and would be charged with plotting against the state and overthrowing the government, after pre-dawn raids nationwide involving 450 police officers.
SOURCE REVIEWED Al Jazeera: Georgia arrests 29 over coup plot open source ↗
Giorgadze's supporters and Giorgadze himself denied the coup charges and described the government's actions as repression, with one opposition leader characterizing the arrests as a publicity stunt aimed at helping Saakashvili's National Movement in the local elections.
SOURCE REVIEWED Eurasianet: Georgian Opposition, Coup Arrests Are Campaign Tactic open source ↗
Georgian security forces rounded up about 30 opposition leaders and charged 14 of them with treason in a purported plan to stage disturbances in Tbilisi leading to an opposition seizure of power, most of them officials of the pro-Moscow Justice Party.
SOURCE REVIEWED Christian Science Monitor: Tensions spike as Georgia alleges coup open source ↗

Editorial Note

Coded 6 Sep 2006 matches the arrests exactly. Verified as a discrete event, though the opposition and Giorgadze called it a pre-election publicity stunt and repression. Second Georgia record in the run (after May 1999).

Cross-Reference

Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.

Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:

Cline Center id
37209062006

How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.

Outcome and Target

Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Saakashvili's government arrested the alleged plotters ahead of the October 2006 local elections.

Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.

Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
Open dataset DOI ↗
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.

Baseline Source-Document Entries

CSP

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

Daily News Bulletin

“GEORGIA ARRESTS 29 IN ALLEGED COUP PLOT: [Daily Report Edition],” September 6, 2006

BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

“Opposition leader confesses to plotting coup in Georgia,” September 9, 2006

The Christian Science Monitor

“Tensions spike as Georgia alleges coup: GEORGIA CHARGED 14 opposition leaders with treason amid struggle over Russian versus Western tilt,” September 11, 2006

This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →

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