Key events from yesterday:
- The US Treasury Department sanctioned Georgia’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Vakhtang Gomelauri and a Deputy Head of the Special Task Department, Mirza Kezevadze.
- The UK sanctioned five senior individuals in Georgia’s Interior Ministry ‘responsible for violent attacks against journalists and peaceful protestors in Georgia’: Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, Director of the Tbilisi Police Department Sulkhan Tamazashvili, Head of the Special Tasks Department responsible for riot police Zviad Kharazishvili, Kharazishvili’s deputy Mileri Lagazauri, and, like the US, Georgia’s Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri.
- The Chair of the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee issued a joint statement along with senior parliamentarians from the EU, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, and Ukraine, calling for sanctions.
- 17 OSCE member states issued a joint statement in solidarity with the Georgian people, emphasising that they would explore ‘all mechanisms in the OSCE context going forward’.
- Georgia’s two largest banks, TBC and Bank of Georgia, announced a joint fund of ₾5 million ($1.8 million) ‘which will be directed to support affected citizens, as well as small and medium businesses’.
