Outrage as 71-year-old Georgian paediatrician among latest detainees following 4 October protests
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to note that pediatrician Giorgi Chakhunashvili was released on bail on 11 October.
The Georgian police have detained nine more people in connection with the 4 October anti-government protest in Tbilisi, bringing the official number of detainees in the case to 45. Among those arrested is a 71-year-old paediatrician.
The Interior Ministry held a briefing on Thursday to announce eight new detentions, while information about another arrest was released on Friday via social media.
Since 6 October, when news of the first detainees emerged, the ministry’s briefings updating the public about arrests related to the protest have become a daily routine.
On 4 October, in parallel to the partially boycotted municipal elections, tens of thousands gathered on Tbilisi’s Liberty Square to attend an anti-government demonstration, branded previously as a ‘peaceful revolution’.
In the early evening, after hearing a call for male demonstrators to march toward the nearby Presidential Palace on Atoneli Street, a group of protesters attempted to storm the building. In response, police used tear gas, water cannons, and pepper spray. Protesters built barricades, and sporadic clashes around the residence continued late into the night.
The Georgian government has since called the unrest a coup attempt which it has blamed on domestic opposition they claim was aided by ‘foreign intelligence services’.
The Interior Ministry launched an investigation into the 4 October events under four articles of the criminal code: incitement to violently overthrow the constitutional order or the government, group violence, seizure or blocking of a strategic facility, and damage or destruction of property.
An elderly doctor among detainees
Among those detained on Thursday was 71-year-old Georgian paediatrician Giorgi Chakhunashvili. Police arrived at his flat in the evening, a development first reported on Facebook by his son, activist Konstantine Chakhunashvili. Following the post, anti-government protesters and journalists gathered at the scene.
In a Facebook Live video streamed by Chakhunashvili’s wife, Nino Jobava, the paediatrician was seen calmly speaking with the police, telling them he did not agree with the charges brought against him.
‘I’m going with [the police], there’s nothing to be upset about: I’ve loved my homeland until now, I love it today, and I’ll love it tomorrow [...] It was a peaceful rally — no one wanted to overthrow anything’, he said.
Chakhunashvili added that the families he had treated free of charge throughout his career would ‘draw their own conclusions’.
‘Kids, young people — there is nothing too late [...] Long live a free, democratic Georgia. Georgia will surely become a member of the great Euro-Atlantic family’, he said, sitting at his table beside the police officers who were drafting a report.
Officers, who were present in large numbers, ordered activists and journalists to leave the building’s entrance before escorting Chakhunashvili outside and into a police vehicle.
‘Freedom to the regime’s prisoners! Freedom for Giorgi! We will not forget the terror!’ chanted those gathered in the courtyard.
‘I’m very concerned because he is elderly, dependent on medication, and I don’t know how they will treat him. His wife has been monitoring his heartburn and blood pressure every night’, Chakhunashvili’s acquaintance Eka Kvirkvelia told Netgazeti.
When asked why he had been detained, she said she did not know, adding that it was likely it was ‘simply because he is a patriotic person and protests against the Russian regime [the ruling party], which cannot tolerate people like him’.
Chakhunashvili’s arrest sparked reactions on social media, including from members of the medical community. Surgeon Levan Peradze announced a ‘doctors’ protest’ for Friday evening at the parliament.
‘Among the 200 police officers who went to arrest Mr. Gogi [Chakhunashvili], at least 10 were likely treated by this dedicated doctor in their childhood’, he wrote in one Facebook post, adding in another:
‘This is a test of freedom of speech, a test of the dignity of medicine, and a test of society’s conscience. When a 71-year-old doctor is arrested to be silenced, it means they want to silence the entire professional and intellectual Georgia’.
Chakhunashvili also received support from Amiran Gamkrelidze, who headed Georgia’s National Centre for Disease Control from 2013–2022 and previously served as Minister of Health from 2001–2003.
‘I cannot imagine what Gogi could have done to deserve being arrested in the way we saw yesterday. I am confident that justice will find its way!’ he wrote on Facebook.
Chakhunashvili was later released on bail on 11 October.
Daily anti-government protests in Georgia have been ongoing since the government’s 28 November 2024 decision to halt the country’s EU membership bid, which came after disputed parliamentary elections a month earlier.
The state initially attempted to suppress the protests through brutal police violence, later resorting to numerous restrictive laws and heavy fines. In the first phase of the protests, criminal cases were opened in over 50 instances, with many of the detainees already sentenced.
After 4 October, Georgian Dream authorities intensified statements aimed at quelling the daily protests, with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze threatening a policy of ‘zero sympathy’ toward the movement.
Eduard Marikashvili
