Georgian police arrested opposition leader Nika Melia from the Coalition for Change, his party announced Thursday.

According to Georgia’s interior ministry, Melia has been detained on charges of verbally insulting a law enforcement officer, and is expected to appear in court.

The ruling Georgian Dream party has tightened its hold on power in recent years as protesters and critics accuse the government of steering the country away from its pro-Western path and back into Moscow’s orbit.

Melia’s “arrest is the manifestation of fear among the Russian regime,” opposition groups said Friday in a joint statement, referring to the Georgian Dream party.

Opposition groups do not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Georgian Dream government, as they are adamant that the 2024 parliamentary election was rigged.

Melia’s arrest came one day before he was scheduled to attend a court hearing related to separate charges. These involved his refusal to testify before a parliamentary commission, led by the Georgian Dream party, on investigating alleged crimes under the previous government. In that case, the Tbilisi City Court had ordered Melia to post bail by May 30.

According to his lawyer Georgy Kondakhashvili, the charges were fabricated to forcibly bring the opposition leader to the hearing he boycotted.

“I do not know what his detention was connected with. In fact, he was kidnapped. They acted aggressively and without explanation,” Kondakhashvili said in an interview with local media Thursday.

This is the second arrest of a high-profile opposition figure in just over a week.

On May 22, a Georgian court placed Zurab Japaridze — another leading member of the Coalition for Change — in pretrial detention for an unspecified length of time. Japaridze had refused to appear before the same parliamentary inquiry into alleged abuses under the government of Mikheil Saakashvili, a pro-Western administration that was in power from 2004 to 2013.

Dato Parulava contributed to this report.