A pro-EU protest intended to block a key traffic artery in the Georgian capital on February 2 was met with heavy police repression and violent arrests, a day after the Georgian authorities classified the highway as “strategic infrastructure” and criminalised obstructing it.

Over 20 people were reportedly detained including opposition politicians Gigi Ugulava, Nika Melia, Badri Grigalashvili, Giorgi Kirtadze and Tengo Tevzadze, as well as activists and ordinary citizens, including one minor. 

The evening saw a marked resurgence in both demonstrators’ energy and repression by law enforcement, both of which have been gradually building since a broadly peaceful Christmas and New Year period.

Inspired by a similar action in Serbia recently, demonstrators aimed to paralyse Aghmashenebeli Alley, the key northern thoroughfare into the capital and part of Georgia’s East-West highway, a major trade route connecting Tbilisi to the west of the country, neighbouring Turkey, and beyond.

With such a prominent protest action, Georgian demonstrators intended to draw attention to their demands for a rerun of the October 2024 parliamentary elections and the release of over 50 prisoners detained at street protests throughout November and December 2024.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside the Tbilisi Mall on one side of the highway facing a huge deployment of thousands of patrol police, masked special forces officers and riot police who lined the other side of the road.

Violent clashes ensured after demonstrators attempted to surge into the road and block traffic and were pushed back by police cordons. According to local channel TV Pirveli, at least five people were hospitalised following brutal batterings by police, many of which occurred inside unmarked white vans, which were parked at the protest site.

On January 31, following the announcement of the protest, the Georgian Dream government issued a new decree which classified the highway as a “strategic site”, a status previously reserved for airports, railways and government buildings.

The new regulations criminalised the seizure of blockade of key traffic routes, and violators face up to four years in prison or 10-15 if their act is deemed to be “linked to terrorism”.

Georgians have been rallying nightly since November 28 when the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is accused of rigging the October 2024 parliamentary elections, announced it was suspending EU accession talks until 2028.

Among those arrested on February 2 was Nika Melia, one of the leaders of the pro-western Coalition for Change, during a confrontation with a police officer, and former Tbilisi mayor and member of the opposition United National Movement, Gigi Ugulava.

According to reports on the morning of February 3, Melia has been released on bail after being detained on an administrative offence.

According to Interfax news, Melia reported he was “sitting on a chair in handcuffs and was kicked by a police officer” while at the police station.

“I have been involved in politics since 2013 and I have never seen such aggressive people,” Melia said of the officers deployed on Aghmashenebeli Alley, adding that this was the first time he had experienced physical violence from police at a police station after being arrested and handcuffed.

This aggression was starkly demonstrated when dozens of masked officers swarmed around a passing car which had beeped at protesters in solidarity. Police hammered on the car windows, kicked and punched the vehicle body and stood in the driver’s path, clearly intent on attacking the man at the wheel.

As in the early protests immediately after GD’s EU U-turn, journalists appear to have been particularly targeted by officers, who seemed intent on disrupting the work of media representatives.

Nika Kokaia, a cameraman for the local TV Pirveli channel, was hospitalised following injuries he acquired during a police assault, in which officers also attempted to damage his equipment. The details of the attack are not yet clear.

Dea Mamiseishvili, a host on the opposition Mtavari channel, was assaulted by officers and had her phone knocked out of her hand as she was attempting to film a policeman kicking a protester.

The notorious head of the interior ministry’s Special Tasks Department, Zviad “Khareba” Kharazishvili, who is sanctioned by the US under the Global Magnitsky Act for human rights violations, was present at the scene.

Kharazishvili is shown in social media footage shouting abuse and swearing at crowds of protesters over a loudspeaker as well as violently assaulting a handcuffed individual who had been brought to him supposedly so the official could beat him personally.

Domestic and international response

“The facts of improper treatment and excessive use of force by the police against citizens, journalists and politicians, which are reflected in the video footage distributed in public sources, are disturbing,” the Georgian ombudsman Levan Ioselieni stated on the evening of February 2.

The Social Justice Centre (SJC), a local human rights watchdog, has warned that the “excessive use of force by police officers” and the “brutal retaliation” against demonstrators has become a “normalised practice” in recent protests. 

In a statement issued on February 3 the SJC underscored how the footage of police violence against protesters the previous day shows “absolutely unbridled violence that had nothing to do with maintaining order and was motivated by the intention to punish citizens”.

The watchdog also highlighted how the arrest of oppositionists signals the “ideologising of law enforcement” and “grossly violates the principle of police neutrality”.

Both the SCJ and the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, a renowned NGO focused on protecting human rights, have called on Georgia’s Special Investigation Service and Prosecutor’s Office to look in cases of police brutality, with particular reference to the potential accountability of senior interior ministry officials, including Kharazishvili.

The SJC noted that not a single police officer has been punished or investigated for their role in the violent suppression of the pro-EU protests which began on November 28.

In a post on X in response to the February 2 protest, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas stated that “the brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters, journalists and politicians tonight in Tbilisi is unacceptable”.

“Georgia falls short of any expectation from a candidate country. The EU stands with the people of Georgia in their fight for freedom and democracy,” Kallas wrote.