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.”
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
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
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS