Following two nights of relative calm, the ninth consecutive night of anti-government, pro-EU protests in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on December 6 saw violent dispersals by riot police and 48 arrests.

Georgia’s ongoing wave of nightly protests began on November 28, triggered by an announcement from Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that the country would suspend EU accession talks until 2028, essentially halting Georgia’s path to membership in the European bloc.

Protests immediately erupted across the country, and 35 towns and cities around Georgia are now reporting some sort of action. People condemn not only the u-turn on EU accession by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, but also its rigging of parliamentary elections in October, its increasingly authoritarian style of governance and its pursuit of closer ties with Russia. 

In Tbilisi, police responded to the first six protests with violent crackdowns, arresting around 400 individuals so far, over 300 of whom are reported to have suffered inhumane treatment at the hands of the authorities.

The early hours of December 7 saw the seventh crackdown on demonstrators by law enforcement, following two nights during which crowds were permitted to disperse freely. 

According to the Ministry of Health, nine protesters were hospitalised following violent crackdowns by security forces. Among the injured was Nino Kvitaishvili of the Coalition for Change opposition group, who sustained a broken nose after being hit by a glass bottle thrown by an officer.

Unprovoked arrests

At around half past midnight, riot police and special forces deployed water cannons and tear gas against tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside the Georgian parliament building on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue. Up until then the crowds had been peaceful, and it remains unclear why police chose to move in.

“The dispersal began against a completely peaceful protest; there were no lawful grounds to prevent people from expressing their opinions. The Ministry of Internal Affairs must immediately halt the violence and the detention of protest participants,” stated the Georgian public defender, Levan Ioseliani, in an address to the interior ministry.

Among those arrested on December 6-7 was Belgian journalist Wietse de Geyter, who was grabbed by special forces after getting out of a taxi on Rustaveli. 

“You can clearly see he just got out of the cab with me and did literally nothing,” de Geyter’s friend, who was with him at the time of the arrest, wrote on X. The accompanying video shows special forces officers in helmets running all over the street, several of whom grab de Geyter as he is walking along the pavement. He remains in custody.

Attention has also been drawn to the arrest of 19-year-old Sandro Bukia. A video which has been shared widely on social media shows Bukia being carried away down Rustaveli by five officers, whilst his mother screams at the police that her son has epilepsy and begs them to release him, as he is already suffering a seizure. Officers ignore her and she is pushed aside. 

Nikoloz Alavidze, former deputy minister of economy for the ruling party, was also detained during the crackdown, along with his teenage son. Video footage shows the two being dragged out of a group of people standing by the roadside on Rustaveli Avenue and marched off by special forces officers. Alavidze’s wife ran after the officers screaming “that’s my child, that’s my child”, before sinking to her knees in the road. 

The Ministry of Internal Affairs accuses detainees of administrative violations, disobeying lawful police orders and petty hooliganism. In a statement released on December 7, the ministry said that “protest participants had the opportunity to express their protest peacefully, as they did in the previous two days, and to continue their demonstration. However, the actions of some participants turned violent.” 

The MIA cited demonstrators shooting fireworks at the parliament building and said that police officers were “subject to verbal abuse, and stones and various heavy objects were thrown at them”.  

Critics condemn the violence

Throughout the night of December 6-7, large groups of special forces chased fleeing individuals along Rustaveli and down side roads off the main avenue, but also well into other parts of the city. The arrests, which in the first six nights of protests seemed somewhat targeted at those engaging in confrontations, have now become entirely random, marking a turning point in the tactics being deployed by police during crowd dispersals.

The Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), a local human rights watchdog, released a statement on December 7 which declared the dispersal of the rally during the early hours of that morning “a new stage of police terror”, highlighting searches in metro stations, physical violence, verbal abuse of peaceful protesters, violent illegal detentions and interference in journalists’ work. 

"The methods – searching people exiting the subway, ambushing peaceful people leaving the rally – were aimed at intimidating citizens and creating obstacles for them to reach the place of peaceful assembly,” the statement read.

Footage appeared on X around 11.30pm on December 6 showing several officers chasing a man down an escalator at Liberty Square metro station. Allegedly, the man had confronted the police for carrying out illegal searches and was arrested on charges of “insulting an officer”. Video footage shows that the man sang the national anthem as he was detained.

The GYLA also highlighted how police chased anyone attempting to leave the protest site following the forced dispersal. “After the start of the raid in front of the parliament, special forces were also deployed on Republic Square, groundlessly detaining people heading from the rally to Rustaveli metro station,” the watchdog stated.

“The systemic and violent repression against the civilian population should be assessed as a crime against humanity, which could serve as a basis for an appeal to the International Criminal Court,” the statement concluded.

The NGO Transparency International Georgia released a similar statement. “The police, special forces and other armed groups of [Georgian Dream founder Bidzina] Ivanishvili’s regime were not only beating and detaining protest participants but also targeting people on nearby streets. We call on Ivanishvili to stop persecuting citizens. The government’s actions are repressive and represent a blatant violation of human rights, which is condemned by the democratic international community,” the NGO stated.

Georgia’s pro-Western president and GD critic, Salome Zourabichvili, also cited a “gross violation of basic human rights”, in a public condemnation of the dispersal of the December 6-7 protest, which she described as “brutal terror and repression”.

“Normally, the objective is dispersion not extinction,” the president wrote on X on December 7. “Last night, the riot forces went after each protester which managed to escape and tracked them down kilometres away from the city centre,” Zourabichvili’s post continued.

Giorgi Gakharia, one of the leaders of the For Georgia pro-Western opposition coalition, echoed the GYLA and the president’s remarks. “On the ninth night of protests, the crackdown escalated into unprecedented police terror against peaceful protesters in Georgia. This brutal, unprovoked assault, reminiscent of past horrors, reveals the true face of Ivanishvili’s regime, unleashing thug gangs to violently suppress the Georgian people,” the politician wrote on X, adding the hashtag #terrorinGeorgia, which has begun to circulate on social networks amongst ruling party critics.

The foreign ministers of the Weimar Triangle countries (Germany, France and Poland) issued a joint statement condemning the ruling party’s decision to halt EU accession and the “disproportionate use of force against protesters”. “We urge the ‘Georgian Dream’ party to de-escalate tensions and initiate an inclusive dialogue with all political forces and civil society representatives,” the ministers’ statement read.

“Titushky”

In addition to special forces, on the night of December 6-7 demonstrators were also confronted by a number of unidentified individuals being described on social media as “titushky”, a slang term in both Ukrainian and Russian meaning plain-clothed, pro-regime thugs hired to instigate violence.  

One of these individuals, reportedly the pro-GD businessman, Avto Mikadze, was carrying a firearm with which he allegedly threatened a breakaway group off protesters following the dispersal from Rustaveli. He was accompanied by a bearded man in a white jumper who is reportedly of Chechen ethnicity. Local news outlet Formula News has suggested that Mikadze and others may have been serving as private security for this individual.

Despite the violence and arrests, protests entered a tenth night on the evening of December 7. Demonstrators marched from the main building of Tbilisi State University to parliament in solidarity with those detained that morning and demanding their release.

Early in the day, reports came through of a student-led rally in Kutaisi demanding new elections and the release of “regime prisoners”. The students planned to march through the streets and join other demonstrators outside the local government building.