Georgian police on Wednesday raided the offices of an opposition party and arrested its leader in an apparent attempt to squelch a wave of mass protests triggered by the governing party’s decision to suspend negotiations on joining the EU.
During the previous six nights, riot police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, who threw fireworks at police officers and built barricades on the Georgian capital’s central boulevard.
More than 300 protesters have been detained since Thursday last week and more than 100 people have been treated for injuries.
Photo: AP
On Wednesday, the Coalition for Change opposition party said that police raided its offices and detained its leader, Nika Gvaramia. It shared a video showing several officers dragging Gvaramia into a car.
Georgian media reported that police also raided the offices of several other opposition groups and non-governmental organizations.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the Georgian Dream party said the raids targeted those who encouraged violence during protests in an attempt to topple his government.
“I wouldn’t call this repression; it is more of a preventive measure than repression,” he said.
Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in a disputed Oct. 26 election, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s EU aspirations.
The opposition and the pro-Western president have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with neighboring Russia’s help and boycotted parliament sessions.
Mass opposition protests sparked by the vote gained new momentum after the governing party’s decision on Thursday last week to put the EU accession talks on hold.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili refused to recognize the official election results and contested them in the Constitutional Court, which rejected her appeal on Tuesday.
Zourabichvili, who plays a largely ceremonial role, has declared that she would stay on the job even after her six-year term ends later this month to lead the opposition’s demand for a new parliamentary election.
Zourabichvili urged the country’s Western partners to respond to Wednesday’s wave of police raids of opposition groups by putting “strong pressure on a ruling party that is driving the country over the cliff ... Do not be late!” she wrote on social platform X.
The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December last year on condition that it meet the bloc’s recommendations, but put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June after the passage of a “foreign influence” law that was widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.
It requires organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.
The Georgian government’s announcement of the EU accession talks’ suspension came hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution criticizing October’s election as neither free nor fair.
The EU on Monday reiterated its “serious concerns about the continuous democratic backsliding of the country.”
Kobakhidze on Tuesday said that his government is willing to open EU accession talks if the bloc ends its “blackmail.”
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS