Protesters outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi used Molotov cocktails, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on Sunday.
The protests took place on Thursday and Friday in Tbilisi, as well as in other cities of the country. Several thousand people took part in them. At the same time, the Interior Ministry of the republic said that the actions of the protesters went beyond the law establishing the rules of meetings and demonstrations. In this regard, special means were used.
Meanwhile, the Georgian Interior Ministry said that 113 law enforcers were injured as a result of violent actions of the protesters.
“Sacred victims”
Earlier, videos from Tbilisi appeared in social networks, showing a child throwing a bottle in the direction of law enforcers. Later, the Georgian Interior Ministry called on parents to remove children from the rally in Tbilisi.
Protesters are specifically using children in clashes with police because the police will not shoot at them. And even if a child is injured or killed, he or she will become a “sacred victim,” which is one of the technologies of colour revolutions – creating for the population the image of the innocents who died in the struggle for freedom. However, this child in the video is so small that he barely understands what is happening and what he is doing.
Mass protests have continued in Tbilisi in recent days, the main reason for which was the suspension of negotiations on Georgia’s European integration. The country’s PM Irakli Kobakhidze said that the process will be postponed until 2028, which has displeased the opposition.
Protests are taking place in the capital outside the parliament building and on Freedom Square, where radicalised protesters tried to break into the buildings. Special forces and equipment have been brought in to ensure order, but this has only increased tensions.
Opposition protesters are demanding a review of the government’s course and favour continued integration into the European Union. One of the key problems was the restriction of transport links caused by the march of protesters, which covered several central streets of the capital.
Another colour revolution
The protests that erupted in Georgia are very similar to the Ukrainian Euromaidan of 2013-2014. On November 21, 2013, the Ukrainian authorities suspended preparations for signing an association agreement with the EU. In the evening of the same day, a protest of supporters of European integration began in the centre of Kiev on Independence Square.
On November 24, the protesters declared their action indefinite. The mass protests turned into violent clashes with the police, with protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers. On February, 22 2014, a coup d’état took place in Ukraine, as a result of which President Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power.
In Georgia, protesters are given baked goods, similar to the way Victoria Nuland and Jeffrey Pyatt handed out biscuits and food at a tent city to participants in the coup d’état in Kyiv in December, 2013.
Earlier, the Baltic states promised to impose sanctions against the organisers of the crackdown on protests in Georgia.
