Georgians risk serious injury and jail in fresh pro-EU protests

More than 300 individuals have been arrested since mass protests erupted in Georgia six nights in the past, and an rising variety of accounts have emerged alleging violent assaults by police.

One man has instructed the BBC how he was repeatedly kicked within the head, even after he had been knocked unconscious. “When I opened my eyes a third time I couldn’t feel my legs or hands – I couldn’t even move my head,” mentioned Avandtil Kuchava, a 28-year-old businessman.

Demonstrations have continued each evening since final Thursday, after ruling social gathering Georgian Dream mentioned it was halting the nation’s bid to start out talks on becoming a member of the EU.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has accused opposition politicians of orchestrating the violence, blaming them for the accidents.

However, the drive exercised by police has been described as torture and brutality by Georgia’s human rights ombudsman, and it has drawn condemnation from United Nations rights chief Volker Türk, who mentioned using “unnecessary or disproportionate force… is extremely worrying”.

“Don’t blame others,” warned the US embassy in Tbilisi in a pointed message on social media directed at Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream authorities.

It reminded Georgians that it was the ruling social gathering that had halted the EU course of after which misplaced its strategic partnership with the US two days later.

Georgian Dream has been in energy for 12 years and has launched more and more authoritarian legal guidelines on civil society, freedom of speech and LGBT.

For six nights working, tens of hundreds of Georgians have taken to the streets, accusing the federal government of making an attempt to destroy their path to a European future and take them again into Russia’s sphere of affect.

Riot police in physique armour have then sought to push them again with tear fuel and water cannon.

Videos of protesters defying the police have gone viral.

One girl brandished a Georgian flag as she braved a stream of water cannon, whereas one other walked headlong right into a barricade of police standing behind riot shields.

“You garbage people! I’m tired, so what do you want? Are you afraid of me?” shrieks the younger girl defiantly, earlier than she is bundled by the barricade and brought away.

The girl has since been recognized as Nana Tomaradze and a decide has fined her the equal of £720 (€870).

Her lawyer Lasha Tkesheladze mentioned that in Georgian phrases that meant two months’ wages: “She has an 11-year-old son.”

In one other video an aged girl walks alongside a line of helmeted riot police, berating them for pitting Georgian towards Georgian and defending politicians of their palaces.

But the harshness of the police response has drawn comparisons with autocratic states, most notably Russia and Belarus, and the federal government’s critics say they’re working from a Russian playbook.

Other movies which have gone viral listed below are way more sinister.

A middle-aged man in an orange jacket is punched and pushed to the bottom as he tries to get by a big crowd of stationary riot police.

A younger man mendacity prostrate on the bottom is kicked within the head a number of occasions as a younger girl pleads with them to cease.

Avtandil Kuchava endured an identical ordeal from police in unmarked black clothes and after two days in hospital he’s now recovering at dwelling.

“There were four people at the beginning, but after I was knocked out I didn’t know how many were beating me. When I opened my eyes someone’s foot was coming towards my face and I blacked out a second time.

“After I opened my eyes the third time, somebody broke my collarbone along with his hand. Then I blacked out, and the following time I got here spherical I used to be being taken to the police station in a automobile.”

The BBC has approached Georgia’s ministry of internal affairs for comment but has so far not received a response. The ministry has said that 113 law enforcement officers have been injured since the protests began and that police have come under attack from fireworks and other objects.

Avtandil Kuchava says a formal investigation into his case has begun, but he holds out little hope of any result, even though there were plenty of CCTV cameras in front of the Georgian parliament, where it happened.

Although he was attacked early on Saturday, Georgian lawyers say police continue to inflict what they call torture on protesters.

The Legal Aid Network says most of those held on Monday were “brutally overwhelmed”. Public ombudsman Levan Ioseliani has said that because most of the injuries have been to “the face, eye and head space”, that suggests police may have used violent methods as a means of punishment.

One man in his early 20s was hit in the eye by a tear-gas canister on Tuesday and taken to hospital where he was placed in an induced coma.

Georgia’s prime minister has acknowledged there has been violence “on either side”, but he has singled out opposition parties and non-government organisations for stirring up the protests and blamed members of “violent gangs” for the unrest.

The protesters returned to the main avenue outside parliament again on Tuesday night, demanding a re-run of contested elections which monitoring groups say were marred by a string of violations.

Nikolas, 30, was undeterred by the risk of arrest or injury: “Cases like that trigger extra anger. It’s unimaginable for us to step again now.”

Hopes of convincing the constitutional court to annul the 26 October parliamentary elections were dashed on Tuesday when it rejected a lawsuit from Georgia’s pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili, and the four main opposition groups that she has backed.

Meanwhile, further arrests have been reported outside parliament during the sixth night of protests.

Outside a detention centre on the outskirts of Tbilisi where many of the arrested protesters are being held, a group of activists held up posters of badly bruised protesters while one of them chanted “freedom for detainees” through a megaphone.

“We need the worldwide neighborhood to know that this isn’t solely a combat for Georgian individuals nevertheless it’s a combat between Russia and Western values,” mentioned one of many activists, Mari Kapadnadze.