- By Christy Cooney
- BBC News
7 hours ago
Image source, Getty Images
Thousands of protesters demonstrated outside Georgia’s parliament on Sunday amid growing opposition to the country’s government.
Critics accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of being under Russian influence and backsliding on democracy.
The government is accused of jailing political opponents and silencing independent media.
The rally was organized by the main opposition party in support of imprisoned former President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Mr Saakashvili, who served two terms as president between 2004 and 2013, is currently serving a six-year sentence for abuse of power, although international human rights groups have condemned his conviction as politically motivated.
Last month, mass protests forced the government to scrap a law that would have required any NGO receiving money from abroad To as an “agent of foreign influence.”
Opponents said the law was modeled on a bill introduced in Russia in 2012 to suppress dissent, calling it a move toward authoritarianism. During the protests, the police used water cannon and pepper spray against the participants.
On Sunday, protesters outside the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi waved Georgian, Ukrainian and EU flags and held a giant banner reading “For a European Future”.
Public opinion in Georgia is overwhelmingly pro-EU and the government says it remains committed to the country’s bid to join the bloc, but opponents say their actions hurt Georgia’s chances of membership.
Georgia, along with Ukraine and Moldova, applied for EU membership just days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In June, the EU officially named Ukraine and Moldova as candidate countries, but said Georgia would have to undertake a series of political and legal reforms before being granted the status.
Levan Khabeishvili, leader of the United National Movement party founded by Mr Saakashvili, in his speech to the rally called for the “liberation of political prisoners” and the introduction of the reforms demanded by Brussels.
Giorgi Margvelashvili, Mr Saakashvili’s successor as President, told the crowd that the Georgian government “is controlled from Moscow and our duty is to save our homeland from Russian stooges”.
“We are freedom-loving people, part of the European family, we reject Russian slavery,” he said.
One of the protesters, 27-year-old painter Luka Kavsadze, told AFP: “Our struggle will be peaceful but uncompromising and will take us to where we belong – the European Union.”
In recent months, Mr Saakashvili has been on a series of hunger strikes and his supporters have claimed he is being denied adequate health care.
Mr Saakashvili has also claimed he was poisoned in prison, although Georgian authorities have accused him of feigning ill health in order to secure an early release. In an article for the Politico website earlier this week, Mr Saakashvili said he was dying of “a bewildering array of over 20 serious illnesses”.