FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2012 photo from files a police officer stands near a palm tree and a monument to love in Georgia's Black Sea resort city of Batumi. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili boasts that Georgia has become a “beacon of democracy” since he took office in 2004. But critics charge that democracy is dimming. Opposition leaders, watchdogs and journalists complain of official intimidation and accuse the government of resorting to Soviet methods of clamping down on dissent. (AP Photo/Maria Danilova, File)