Agents of the Georgian special forces expelled protesters from the territory of the parliament on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi with a water cannon, RIA Novosti reports.
Protests began in Tbilisi on Thursday afternoon after the Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the suspension of EU accession negotiations until the end of 2028. The president joined the opposition demonstration. Salome Zurabishvili. Police and special forces were also deployed at the parliament building.
Later, security forces, using water cannon, managed to expel the protesters from parliament, who responded by setting up barricades. Police arrested 43 protesters. 32 employees of the Ministry of the Interior suffered from the illegal and violent actions of the protesters, almost all of them needed medical help. One injured person remains in the hospital.
Kobakhidze said on Thursday that attempts by some European politicians and bureaucrats to present relations between the European Union and Georgia “as a unilateral event” are categorically unacceptable to the people. Furthermore, “the whole cascade of insults coming from these people over all these years” is unacceptable, Kobakhidze emphasized. He added that the evildoers of Georgia have turned the European Parliament into a simple instrument of blackmail and this is the greatest shame of the European Union.
The republic’s authorities adopted two laws criticized in the EU this year: “On family values and the protection of minors”, also known as the law prohibiting LGBT propaganda.*and “On the Transparency of Foreign Influence”, or Foreign Agents Law. Brussels criticized these initiatives and demanded Tbilisi cancel them, threatening to suspend the EU accession process, suspend financial support and even stop visa liberalization for Georgian citizens.
*Extremist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.
