The Democracy
Research Center echoes the dispersal of peaceful demonstrators by the police
forces on Chavchavadze Avenue, in front of Tbilisi State University, on
November 19, 2024, at dawn, and believes that the Ministry of Internal Affairs
used completely disproportionate force to break up the
peaceful assembly. The released footage clearly shows that the number of
representatives of the police force was several times higher than the number of
participants in the peaceful and non-violent assembly, and in no case was
there a need to use physical force.
Although
the police have the right to use force to break up a demonstration in cases
defined by law, this applies only to those types of demonstrations that are
violent. Several circumstances make the action of the police, carried out on November 19, in the early morning, in front of the first building
of the university and on Chavchavadze Avenue, illegal: 1. The peaceful nature of the assembly and the emphatically peaceful behavior of its participants; 2. Disproportionally
high number of police forces and harshness of the physical force used; 3. Absence of any type of warning from the
state or local authorities regarding the assembly that had been going on for two days.
According
to the reports, the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrested 14 peaceful
participants in the rally. It is also alarming that the lawyers of the detainees
are not given the opportunity to visit the detained persons. A journalist and a
cameraman of the Main Channel TV were
physically assaulted at the rally. The video footage clearly shows several
dozens of patrol police officers preventing the cameraman from performing his
professional duties and physically assaulting him.
The
Democracy Research Center calls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs: to return
to the framework of the law; not to prevent the participants in the rally from peacefully expressing their protest; to give the
media and lawyers the opportunity to perform their professional duties. It is also important to
hold the person, who issued the illegal order to break up the rally, responsible in the future.
The case of
former de facto deputies of South Ossetia’s de facto parliament, David Sanakoyev,
Garry Muldarov and Dzambolat Medoyev, who are appealing the decision to revoke
their citizenship of the Russian Federation, remains unresolved to date.
To silence critical media, “Georgian Dream” tries to use financial sanctions. Following several television, online and radio broadcasters, regional media have now also been affected.
Issuance of movement permits, required for travel within and beyond Akhalgori district, has been resumed.
