The protests sweeping Georgia have now entered their second week. Sparked on November 28, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would halt E.U. accession talks “until the end of 2028,” the anti-government demonstrations have since spread to cities, towns, and even villages across the country. Protesters are now demanding a rerun of the October 26 parliamentary elections, which saw the ruling Georgian Dream party claim victory amid allegations of vote rigging. The government response has been equal parts brutal and absurd. Police forces have used truncheons, tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets to disperse crowds, severely injuring dozens of protesters and carrying out hundreds of arrests. Georgian Dream officials, meanwhile, have rejected calls for new elections and attempted to blame the European Union for putting integration on hold. For a firsthand perspective on the first week of protests in Tbilisi, The Beet editor Eilish Hart spoke to Georgian journalist Anna Gvarishvili, head of the Investigative Media Lab at the University of Georgia.
The protests sweeping Georgia have now entered their second week. Sparked on November 28, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would halt E.U. accession talks “until the end of 2028,” the anti-government demonstrations have since spread to cities, towns, and even villages across the country. Protesters are now demanding a rerun of the October 26 parliamentary elections, which saw the ruling Georgian Dream party claim victory amid allegations of vote rigging. […]
For a firsthand perspective on the first week of protests in Tbilisi, The Beet editor Eilish Hart spoke to Georgian journalist Anna Gvarishvili, head of the Investigative Media Lab at the University of Georgia.
[…]
Anna Gvarishvili: This is also the first time [I’ve seen countrywide protests] on this scale. Usually, there were protests outside of Tbilisi, but [only] in big cities. Now, it’s in almost every little town and village, and that’s something we’ve never seen before. In my hometown, Batumi, people don’t really like protesting. There’s a [running] joke that we never go out to protest. Now, I’m seeing such massive protests in Batumi that I’m shocked. I think the regime should really be afraid of that.
[…]
There’s been inhumane treatment of those who were arrested. Almost everyone who got arrested was brutally and violently beaten. It’s like a series of torture. First, they’re beaten up at the scene of the arrest (as seen in videos and media recordings), then again in the [police vans]. One protester even said that police used pepper spray inside the car and then closed the door while there were people inside who had already been beaten up and arrested.
[…]
Georgians are always like that. Whenever we see dispersals — like during last year’s protests — or disproportionate [force] from the police, we see more people in the streets. It’s been six days now and the protests are only getting larger and larger, and broader in terms of covering the whole country.
[…]
The protests are totally self-organized and spontaneous, and political parties aren’t involved in [leading them]. That’s good, on the one hand, but it’s also bad because the anger needs a political process going on in parallel and we’re not seeing that. President [Saolome] Zourabichvili is trying her best to be a unifying leader for the opposition parties. But it seems like it’s always Zourabichvili trying her best and we don’t see coordinated [actions] from opposition parties yet, unfortunately.
[…]
Do you feel like the protesters are still optimistic at this point?
Yes, absolutely [I think protesters are optimistic]. It’s not [just] about optimism — it’s a peak of defiance. They understand that there’s nothing to lose anymore. This is the final battle, so either we fight or end up as the next Belarus. So yeah, we don’t really have any other option but to be optimistic.
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