21:59, 28 August 2025

Pro-European protests in Tbilisi continue for 274 days in a row

Activists held a march and picket in support of arrested protesters Mindia Shervashidze and Tornike Toshkhua at the Supreme Court building in Tbilisi, and in the evening they again blocked traffic on Rustaveli Avenue near the parliament.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, on August 27, the 273rd day of pro-European protests, protesters in Tbilisi blocked Rustaveli Avenue, and a protest also took place in Gori.

Since November 28, 2024, supporters of European integration have been going to Tbilisi for daily rallies at the Georgian Parliament and blocking traffic along Rustaveli Avenue, demanding the release of all arrested demonstrators and the appointment of new parliamentary elections.

Tonight, on the 274th day of continuous protests, protesters in Tbilisi once again blocked traffic along Rustaveli Avenue with unchanged demands - re-election of parliament and the release of all those arrested for participating in pro-European demonstrations, Publika reports.

Earlier today, members of the Freedom Square movement held a rally outside the Supreme Court in Tbilisi in support of oppositionists Mindia Shervashidze and Tornike Toshkhua, who were arrested in August.

According to lawyer Omar Purtseladze, Tornike Toshkhua has been on hunger strike since her arrest, for 13 days already. Freedom Square plans to hold rallies in their support every Thursday.

On August 16, the 262nd day of continuous protests, it became known that activists Tornike Toshkhua and Mindia Shervashidze had been detained on charges of group violence. The charge concerns the protest on Rustaveli Avenue on August 1: according to the protesters, a knife fell out of the pocket of provocateur Beka Gotsiridze, who came to the protest and was arguing with the activists. Tornike Toshkhua and Mindia Shervashidze then took the knife from him and handed it over to the police. Both were detained based on Gotsiridze's complaint.

“I managed to get information from his cellmates. Naturally, after 13 days of hunger strike, he showed certain symptoms. Today, he is psychologically stable and able to withstand stress and pressure, but we know that irreparable damage could be done to his health,” Pirveli TV company quotes the lawyer as saying.

After the rally at the Supreme Court ended, protesters marched to the parliament building, joining the demonstrators on Rustaveli Avenue.

The charges of violence brought against Shervashidze and Toshkhua are called absurd by activists: Georgian Dream supporter Beka Gotsiridze, a former football player, recorded a video for TikTok a few minutes after the incident on Rustaveli on August 1, claiming that he got into a fight with pro-European demonstrators, but they “didn’t even manage to beat him up.”

The Tbilisi City Court has scheduled the sentencing of eight protesters accused of group violence at rallies in November and December 2024 for September 2.

One of the defendants, Insaf Aliyev, asked the court on August 27 to issue a fair sentence, noting that he does not speak Georgian and had not met the other detainees before his arrest. The other defendants, in turn, do not speak Aliyev's native Azerbaijani language. The prosecutor's office put forward a version that Aliyev participated in the group violence by listening to the speeches of another defendant, the founder of the Dafioni student movement Zviad Tsetskhladze, on TV through an interpreter.

“I went to Freedom Square alone, I went on my own, and not on someone’s orders. If I committed a crime, I am always ready to admit it. Last time we saw, we looked at the evidence - allegedly Zviad was speaking on TV, and I turned to the translator: “tell me what he is saying… I have to act like this.” Only on the basis of such evidence am I being charged,” Tbilisi_life quotes him as saying in court.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/414938