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Dozens injured after Georgia police fire rubber bullets at demonstrators Dozens injured after Georgia police fire rubber bullets at demonstrators
(about 2 hours later)
Riot police in Georgia have fired rubber bullets and used water cannon on demonstrators outside parliament who had tried to storm the building over a controversial address by a Russian politician. Police in Georgia used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to stop protesters storming the country’s parliament early on Friday, leaving dozens requiring medical treatment. Thirty-nine police officers and 30 civilians had been treated in hospital for injuries after the clashes, with the number likely to rise, said David Sergeenko, an adviser to the prime minister.
Nearly 70 people – 39 police and 30 civilians – were treated in hospitals for injuries during the clashes in the capital Tbilisi on Thursday night, said David Sergeenko, an adviser to the prime minister. Thousands had rallied through the night outside the building in the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, after a Russian MP was allowed to chair a session of parliament on Thursday.
Police earlier fired teargas to disperse thousands of protesters who gathered outside parliament after Russian lawmaker Sergei Gavrilov addressed the assembly from the speaker’s seat, causing uproar. The outcry began after Russian MP Sergei Gavrilov took the chair’s seat during an assembly of legislators from Orthodox Christian countries being held in Tbilisi. As news of Gavrilov’s appearance began to circulate, a crowd gathered outside parliament, and by late evening, about 10,000 people were massed outside the building, waving Georgian flags, chanting and later on, attempting to breach the lines of riot police and storm the building.
About 10,000 protesters had gathered outside parliament earlier. Some succeeded in breaking riot police cordons to enter the parliament courtyard. They were pushed back by police but continued to try to enter the building. Riot shields and body armour seized from police were passed through the crowds and at one point an injured policeman was dragged to an ambulance by protesters.
Around 3,000 protesters remained outside parliament after the teargas was fired, an AFP reporter at the scene said. Georgia and Russia fought a war in 2008, after which Russia recognised two breakaway Georgian regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as independent states. Georgia and most of the international community considers the territories de facto occupied by Russia. The appearance of a Russian MP who has backed independence for the two territories, sitting in the seat of the parliamentary chair and speaking in Russian, caused outrage in Georgia. Some protesters carried abusive signs about Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.
Earlier, tens of thousands rallied in the streets of central Tbilisi, demanding speaker Irakli Kobakhidze step down after the speech by Gavrilov from his seat.
Gavrilov’s address was made during an annual meeting of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), a forum of lawmakers from predominantly Orthodox countries.
Russian expansion: 'I went to bed in Georgia – and woke up in South Ossetia'Russian expansion: 'I went to bed in Georgia – and woke up in South Ossetia'
The Russian MP’s presence in fiercely pro-western Georgia’s parliament prompted outrage in the ex-Soviet nation which in 2008 fought and lost a brief but bloody war with Moscow over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister and leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said in a statement that he “fully shares the sincere outrage of the Georgian citizens”.
A group of Georgian opposition lawmakers demanded the Russian delegation leave the parliament’s plenary chamber. Former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who now has Ukrainian citizenship and faces criminal charges in Georgia, called on police to join with the protesters. Saakashvili, who has embarked on a political career in Ukraine, has said the Georgian accusations against him are political revenge and has accused Ivanishvili, who made his billions in Russia, of allowing increasing Kremlin influence in Georgia.
Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili – widely believed to be calling the shots in Georgia as the leader of his ruling Georgian Dream party – said in a statement he “fully shares the sincere outrage of the Georgian citizens”. The protests come after a year of increasingly polarised politics in Georgia, with frustrations over the ruling Georgian Dream party mounting, and the incident with the Russian MP merely proving the final straw.
“It is unacceptable that a representative of the occupier country chairs a forum in the Georgian parliament,” Ivanishvili said. Police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd at regular intervals for hours on end, sending people fleeing to adjacent streets, only to return. Later, in the early hours of Friday, they used rubber bullets and water cannon. By 3am local time, hundreds of police had cordoned off the area around parliament, but a crowd of a few thousand protesters remained, lobbing projectiles and in one case smashing the windows of a police car.
He added he had told speaker Kobakhidze, to “immediately suspend” the IAO session. The US embassy in Tbilisi in a statement: “We understand the frustrations that many people are feeling today, and we call on all sides to remain calm, exercise restraint, and act only within the framework of the constitution.”
Headquartered in Athens, the IAO is a permanent, international forum of MPs from predominantly Orthodox-Christian countries. Russian state Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin accused Georgia of failing to uphold the norms of international conventions. “They could neither provide security as the event, nor protect the Russian delegation from attacks and threats,” he told the Russian news agency Interfax.
Georgia and its Soviet-era master Russia have long been at loggerheads over Tbilisi’s bid to join the European Union and Nato, with the spiralling confrontation culminating in an all-out war on 8 August 2008.
The Russian army swept into Georgia – bombing targets and occupying large swathes of territory – after Tbilisi launched a large-scale military operation against South Ossetian separatist forces who had been shelling Georgian villages.
Over just five days, Russia defeated Georgia’s small military and the hostilities ended with a ceasefire mediated by France’s then president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who at the time held the EU’s rotating presidency.
After the war, which claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers and civilians from both sides, Moscow recognised South Ossetia and another separatist enclave, Abkhazia, as independent states where it then stationed permanent military bases.
Tbilisi and its western allies have denounced the move as an “illegal military occupation”.
The two regions constitute 20% of the country’s territory.
Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report
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