Pro-EU demonstrators in Georgia built barricades outside parliament today after police used tear gas and rubber bullets against thousands of protesters rallying for a third week against a controversial “foreign influence” bill, an AFP reporter saw.
The Black Sea Caucasus nation has been gripped by mass anti-government protests since 9 April, after the ruling Georgian Dream party reintroduced plans to pass a law, which Brussels has denounced as undermining Tbilisi’s EU aspirations.
Yesterday evening, masked riot police violently rushed the peaceful rally, using tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon, while beating and arresting scores of people protesting against the bill, which critics say resembles Russian legislation used to silence dissent.
Several journalists were attacked, including an AFP photographer who was beaten with a rubber baton, despite being clearly identified as a member of the press.
Levan Khabeishvili- the chairman of the main opposition United National Movement of jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili- was badly beaten and had to seek medical help.
Local TV stations aired footage showing his face disfigured with missing teeth.
Another ally of Mr Saakashvili, Sophia Japaridze, said she was “cruelly beaten by police.”
“I call on the interior minister to immediately stop the crackdown on the peaceful rally, the use of disproportionate force, the violence against barehanded youth,” Georgia’s President Salome Zurabishvili- who is at loggerheads with the ruling party- said in a statement.
The rally continued past midnight, with defiant protesters braving water cannon jets and tear gas.
Demonstrators blocked traffic outside parliament on Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare and several other key transport arteries across the city.
In the early hours of this morning, protesters erected barricades outside parliament building after riot police left the area.
