Kobakhidze comments on arrests of protesters in Georgia

Pro-European protesters in Tbilisi blocked Rustaveli Avenue for the 278th consecutive evening. Three dozen people have been accused of violence at the protests, although more than a thousand participated, the Georgian Prime Minister said.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, on August 30, the 276th day of protests, a protest was held in Tbilisi under the slogan: "A Georgian means a European." Its participants called on the EU not to change its visa policy towards Georgia. On August 31, a march in support of convicted pro-European protester Archil Muselyants took place in Kazreti.

Participants in a daily protest in Tbilisi today again blocked Rustaveli Avenue; protests demanding the release of political prisoners and the re-election of parliament have continued for the 278th day in a row, Publika reports.

The opposition recalled that a mass protest in defense of the visa-free regime is planned for September 13. Tengo Tevzadze, a member of the For Change coalition, said that the protesters will gather near the Tbilisi State University and march to the parliament.

“The anti-Georgian regime, calling itself the “Georgian Dream,” has decided to deprive us of visa-free entry to the European Union. That is why we, who do not intend to cooperate with this regime, did not agree with it and do not resist it - we have a plan to overthrow it,” the activist said.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze today commented on the arrests of participants in pro-European protests in Georgia. According to him, “about 1,000 people” took part in the violence at the protests. “And of these, only about 30 have been arrested, which speaks to a very high level of compliance with legal norms,” Interpressnews quotes Kobakhidze as saying.

He added that “in all cases, there is specific evidence that law enforcement agencies are guided by.”

The list of Georgian political prisoners, which activists maintain on the Politpatimrebi.ge website, includes 64 people as of September 1. Human rights activists link the persecution of all these people to the protests, although not all of them have been formally accused of violence at mass protests. Thus, the list includes eight politicians convicted on charges of failing to comply with the demands of the parliamentary temporary investigative commission, Russians Anastasia Zinovkina, Artem Gribul and Anton Chechin, accused of drug trafficking, as well as blogger Ucha Abashidze and his wife Mariam Iashvili, arrested back in the spring of 2024.

"Caucasian Knot" published a report "The Main Thing About the Persecution of Protesters in Georgia". The Caucasian Knot collected materials about the parliamentary elections and the protests that followed them on the page "Elections in Georgia-2024".

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