TBILISI — Protesters in Georgia have offered detailed accounts to RFE/RL’s Georgian Service of being brutally overwhelmed by police throughout demonstrations in opposition to the federal government’s choice to halt EU membership negotiations.
The police’s use of extreme violence on the protests, which have taken place for six consecutive nights, has prompted a wave of revulsion in Georgia and condemnation overseas.
Almost 300 folks have thus far been charged in relation to the protests, most on expenses of petty hooliganism and resisting arrest. Listed here are simply a few of their tales.
Salome Zandukeli: ‘Why Are You Hitting Me? I am Not Your Youngster.’
At protests, Salome Zandukeli says, she likes to face on the entrance and the evening of December 2 was no totally different. With a pal, she stood within the first few traces of protesters on Rustaveli Avenue, the road in downtown Tbilisi that has been the middle of the demonstrations.
When the police charged to interrupt up the protest, Zandukeli and her pal fled, searching for refuge in a close-by workplace constructing. “I knew getting in there was not a good suggestion,” Zandukeli says. “However proper then we could not consider anything.”
Shortly afterward, the safety forces adopted them in, and the 2 ladies tried to flee down some stairs.
“Most likely 20-25 RoboCops had been chasing us,” Zandukeli says. “After I circled, the very first thing I considered was to start out filming them, however this irritated one in every of them a lot that he ran over to me and advised me to show off my cellphone. After I did not, he snatched it out of my hand, threw it to the bottom, after which slammed me in opposition to the wall.”
The riot police began shouting and swearing at them, Zandukeli recounts, calling them c***s” and beginning to beat them. She remembers seeing her pal Natia fall to the ground, making an attempt to guard her head from the blows.
“They had been hitting us within the head,” she says, and I used to be shouting, “What’s incorrect with you?…. After I stated to him, ‘Why are you hitting me? I am not your youngster,’ he stated, ‘You aren’t my youngster, and that is why I am hitting you.'”
The 2 ladies managed to get away, hiding in a bar alongside Rustaveli Avenue. However in a matter of minutes, Zandukeli says, your entire avenue was filled with riot police. They turned off the lights within the bar and locked the door.
“If they’d charged in, I do not know what would have occurred to us,” she says.
Gia Jvarsheishvili: ‘Do not Let This Son Of A Bitch Die’
At 4 o’clock within the morning of December 2, the police had simply fired tear fuel into the group. Because the protesters fled, fanning out into the streets across the parliament, Gia Jvarsheishvili, a incapacity activist, says he noticed one in every of his feminine associates standing alone on a avenue nook, holding a flag in her hand.
Jvarsheishvili had been to political rallies earlier than and thought he could be protected. “Typically I stand between the demonstrators and the police — proper in entrance of them — and I’ve by no means been hit or arrested,” he says. “I by no means do something violent.”
I survived simply by likelihood.
This time, he wasn’t so fortunate. The safety forces began working towards him, Jvarsheishvili says, “accusing him of throwing a Molotov cocktail.” That was once they began beating him and telling him he wasn’t worthy of the Georgian flag his pal was carrying, he says.
The officers pressured him down onto the ground. He remembers his pal pleading with police to cease beating them.
Earlier than taking him to a police van, they made him stroll by way of a “hall” of riot troops, all shouting abuse at him, he says. “They referred to as out for the others to listen to: ‘This one threw a Molotov cocktail. Upon listening to that, I used to be attacked by one other livid police officer.” This time, he says, the assault was with out mercy.
Later behind a police van, the police pushed the detainees down on the ground and commenced stamping on them, he says. Jvarsheishvili says he tried to cover below the seat to guard his face, however they nonetheless managed to get to him.
“Abruptly, I used to be in insufferable ache and I noticed that I had been injured. I did not realize it then, however I had a damaged rib,” he says. Jvarsheishvili says he managed to crawl away. “I discovered it troublesome to breathe. I heard them saying, ‘Do not let this son of a bitch die.'”
After photographing him and taking his backpack, telephone, and pockets, they lastly took him for medical consideration. “They are not apprehensive about hurting folks,” he says. “I survived simply by likelihood.”
Zviad Ratian: ‘They Simply Saved Beating And Beating Me’
The video exhibits a person in an orange jacket being hauled by way of a mass of black-clad riot police. He’s repeatedly punched by cops as he’s pulled by way of the group. At one level, he falls down, nearly disappearing from view, because the cops kick him and stamp on him. Then he’s pulled again onto his toes to face extra blows.
It was solely due to his distinctive brilliant jacket that Zviad Ratian’s associates knew that the person within the video was him.
Simply earlier than it occurred, Ratian, a poet, says he was protesting together with his associates in downtown Tbilisi. There was a scuffle, and he says he tried to guard his fellow protesters from the police.
“I simply stood there, I did not scream…. I simply lined them with my arms,” he says.
That was when his ordeal actually started.
The police took him and beat him behind a van. “They only did not cease. They only saved beating and beating me,” says Ratian, who was left with a damaged nostril and inside bleeding.
He says he remembers one of many cops punching him within the face and physique. As his arms had been tied, he says the one method he might attempt to keep away from the blows was by turning away. “They could not break me,” he provides.
At one level on the best way to the detention middle, the police van made a brief cease and Ratian says a younger man was pulled into the car.
“He had been very badly overwhelmed,” he remembers. “[But the police officers] wrote down that he had fallen down the steps.”
Tornike Beradze: ‘There Was A Puddle Of Blood’
“We had been strolling from Ingoroqva Road to Zubalashvili Road…. My brother was forward of us, and me and one in every of our associates had been following somewhat bit behind,” says Tornike Beradze, who was recovering within the hospital with a concussion after he was arrested on the evening of December 1.
First the riot police approached his brother, Beka, a journalist for RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, aggressively asking why he was right here, Beradze says. “Once we noticed what was taking place, we approached them and requested them what was happening. We stated that if this avenue was blocked, we might go one other method.”
As quickly as he stated this, he was summoned by two cops. “They went by way of my pockets, took out my telephone, pockets, home keys. They then ripped off my backpack and emptied it out [on the ground],” Beradze says.
“Inside, I had a water bottle and [gas] masks. They requested me what it was, if I had something unlawful, after which they hit me with the primary punch,” he says.
After beating him, Beradze says they put him in handcuffs and took him towards Rustaveli Avenue.
“I attempted to inform my brother to watch out,” Beradze says, as he was led away, “however after I regarded again to inform him, I bought punched within the face a number of extra occasions.” Each time he raised his head, Beradze says, he was hit once more.
The assaults continued when he was put in a police van, he says.
“It was a nightmare. Everybody had been overwhelmed, and there was a puddle of blood [on the floor]…. After I began to scrub my face, the door opened, and the police officer hit me within the face once more. Then the door opened once more and my brother and my pal had been introduced in.”
His brother, Beka, was additionally severely overwhelmed by police. After being held at a brief detention middle, he was launched at daybreak on December 3.