Georgian police intervened on Wednesday evening as anti-government protesters once again tried to block Tbilisi's central avenue, defying tightened protest laws. The crackdown led to a series of arrests, with some estimates reaching almost 30.
Chaotic scenes unfolded in front of the parliament, where nightly protests have been taking place since 28 November, after the ruling Georgian Dream party suspended Georgia’s EU membership bid.
After the government failed to suppress the protests — first through brutal police violence and later through heavy fines — the ruling party further tightened the law last Thursday, abolishing fines and making a number of protest-related actions, including road blockings, punishable by imprisonment from the very first offense.
Despite the tightening of the law, protesters continued blocking roads every evening. On Wednesday, some protesters began closing the road earlier than usual. Police soon arrived at the scene, calling on the crowd to clear the way. The demonstrators refused to comply, with one climbing onto a police car in protest.
The police soon began detaining protesters en masse. As OC Media witnessed, at least one demonstrator, Tamar Giorgadze, was detained by officers as she stood on the sidewalk.
The forceful detentions were accompanied by scuffles, with at least one protester taken away by an ambulance. As he was carried on a stretcher, wearing a neck brace, the man shouted, ‘We will win gracefully — this is nothing!’
In parallel with the detentions, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a statement at 21:19 Tbilisi time, noting that the number of protesters was insufficient to block the road. According to the ministry, around 20 demonstrators were detained, though activists claimed the number reached almost 30.
The ministry stated that all were detained under administrative procedures, except for the woman who climbed onto the police car: she was detained under the criminal code for hooliganism, punishable by a fine at minimum and up to one year in prison. The severity of the punishment increases, with the maximum penalty rising to up to five years in prison if the act is committed against a ‘representative of the authorities or another person seeking to prevent the act of hooliganism’.
Following the tightening of the protest legislation, this was the first instance in which the police broke into the protest site and carried out detentions on the spot. In recent days, demonstrators have typically been identified during protests and then detained the next day, either at their homes or while moving in public.
By Wednesday, the police had already detained several dozen people, many of whom were sent by the courts to days-long imprisonment on charges of blocking roads or covering their faces during protests.
Under the revised legislation, both actions are punishable by administrative detention of up to 15 days, while repeating the offense within one year can lead to up to one year in prison, and further repetition can result in up to two years’ imprisonment.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
