Giorgi Tsakadze, an employee of the Democracy Research Center, was arrested at the rally, and he tells us about the violence committed by the police.

On November 29, at 07:00 am, I went to Rustaveli Avenue to join a rally against the de facto government.

As soon as I joined demonstrators near the Rustaveli Theater, an intensive movement of black-masked police officers began from the upper streets in the direction of the protesters. Since there was a reinforced cordon of “Robocops” and a large amount of riot equipment in the Freedom Square, near the Tbilisi Marriott hotel, the demonstrators began to move quickly in the opposite direction, towards “Zemeli”. However, hundreds of black-masked people came running down M. Laghidze and A. Chavchavadze streets and chased a hundred to two hundred demonstrators. We were being chased, beaten, and detained. All this lasted about 10 minutes, from the time I arrived until I was detained. Neither during this raid nor for the 10-15 minutes before, did I hear any warnings or loud statements from the police, because there were none.

When I was walking quickly on the sidewalk near the crossroad, near the olive tree and the Kenari store (in the direction of the Rustaveli metro station), masked police officers caught up with me at high speed. I couldn’t even turn around, they threw me to the ground and at least three of them kicked me. At that moment, one of them hit me in the right ear and (as it turned out later) damaged my eardrum, which caused me to start bleeding. The rest of the blows were made to the body and were less damaging. During the beating, I asked them to stop this action. Soon, two police officers grabbed me and took me to the opera area, where other detainees were also being brought. There, they put me in one of the police cars and took me to the Tbilisi police station in Digomi. The two officers of the criminal police, who arrested me, were generally polite, although the driver of the police car was verbally humiliating me almost the entire way, for no reason.

In the Digomi police station inI saw many “like me,” mostly beaten and shocked even more than me. There, they drew up a report of my arrest hastily and sent me to the nearby detention center. While waiting to enter the detention center, I was kept in a parked police car for several hours. Finally, I was placed in the facility in the afternoon. There they put me through strange procedures: they took fingerprints of all my fingers and palms, took no less than ten pictures of me with and without a special plate in my hand (they took photos of me before that as well, after the arrest, and sent them somewhere). After these and other procedures (seizing and sealing my personal belongings, being examined by a doctor, etc.), I found myself in a two-person cell No. 7, where, as I later found out, no daylight reached at all.

I was treated normally in the Dighomi detention center and the food offered was not bad either.

The next day, November 30, in the afternoon, I was taken out of the cell, given my belongings, and the same pair of police officers, who arrested me, and another of their colleagues took me to the City Court by one of their personal cars. No less than 3.5 hours after my arrival, I was taken out of the dirty “abeziannik” and taken to the courtroom. Another detainee was sitting with me, with whom I had nothing to do, but the City Court still “heard” the cases of the two of us together. They simply did not have evidence of my violation of the law, and the “judge” was forced to rely only on the testimony of one of my arresters, who personally accused me of throwing stones and swearing at the police officers, although he “could not remember” any specific details. It is noteworthy that in addition to this accusation, the MIA lawsuit also included another accusation that I had obstructed the police officers from performing their duties (which was also a lie). However, neither any of the witnesses nor the complainant said a single word at the trial in this regard.

As a result, after about an hour and a half of the trial, at 6:00 pm the judge delivered a guilty judgement and ordered me to five days in prison for violating Article 173 of the Administrative Code.

After that, three criminal police officers put me in handcuffs in a car and my uncertain journey began on the streets of Tbilisi. After 1-2 hours, we arrived at the 7th Criminal Police Department (near Gagarini Square) and they kept me there until about 3:30 am. Then, they took me back to the City Court and finally, at about 05:00 am, I was put in a Ford Transit minibus with six other people who had also been arrested at the protest. It is noteworthy that before putting us in the car, they received an order to put our handcuffs behind our backs and they took us to Kutaisi this way. Due to our hands being tied behind our backs with iron shackles, we experienced physical pain the entire way (for about three hours) and periodically expressed our dissatisfaction. After we arrived, I was tied behind my back for at least another five hours, because, for some reason, it took a long time to accommodate the detainees in the Kutaisi detention facility (located on Javakhishvili Street). That is, in total, I had my hands tied behind my back for at least 8 hours. Naturally, from time to time I asked to ease this state and to move the shackles forward, which they allowed me to do only for an hour at the end of my waiting in the car. Finally, at 03:00 in the afternoon, I entered the detention facility.

There too, they took several prints of all my fingers and palms, and took many pictures of me with and without a special plate in my hand. I was treated normally and politely in the Kutaisi detention facility. When my term of imprisonment expired, on December 4, at 07:15 am, I was released into the street, so that no one cared about my return to Tbilisi.

It is worth noting that during the entire five days of my detention, I was not allowed to use the telephone even once. Police officers contacted my family themselves, but they did not bother to clarify information (for example, about the place of detention), and my family members managed to establish my exact location through other, informal channels. This happened in both cases of my placement in the detention facility. The family was provided with information about a different location, but in reality, I was placed somewhere else.

Overall, I believe that my beating, transportation in inhuman conditions, and imprisonment were completely unlawful, on the ground that I was peacefully participating in a demonstration against the de facto government.