TBILISI — The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi has blasted the ruling Georgian Dream party for taking decisions that have cost the Caucasus nation Western support and sparked mass demonstrations that security forces have violently put down.
Georgia has been thrown into turmoil since parliamentary elections in October — in which Georgian Dream secured 54 percent of the vote — with the opposition and Western governments arguing that the poll was marred by violations and Russian influence.
Last week the government said it was halting EU accession talks through 2028, but Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has blamed the unrest on foreign “instructors” and tried to explain the decision saying the country is still ready for accession talks, “but only with dignity and justice and without blackmail.”
“Don’t blame others,” the U.S. Embassy wrote in a post on Facebook on December 3, noting it was Georgian Dream that stopped the EU membership process and that the party was to blame for a decision by Washington to halt a strategic partnership between the two countries.
The embassy statement came hours after security forces dispersed demonstrators with tear gas and water cannon following a fifth night of skirmishes.
In a change of tactics, several hundred protesters on December 3 left Tbilisi’s Chavchavadze Avenue near the state university as police in balaclavas massed in the area following nightlong clashes with demonstrators outside the parliament building, where they have gathered each night since November 28, when the ruling Georgian Dream party declared its decision on EU talks.
Georgian security forces’ use of excessive violence against protesters has prompted a wave of outrage in the country and abroad, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte slamming it as “deeply concerning.”
At a news conference in Brussels ahead of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers, Rutte said NATO members “urge the Georgian government to stay on the path” toward “more EU and NATO integration.”
“The reports of violence are deeply concerning, and I condemn them unequivocally,” he said.
Twenty-six people, including 23 protesters and three members of the security forces needed hospitalization after the clashes on the night of December 1, Georgia’s Health Ministry said on December 3.
“None of the injuries are life threatening,” the ministry added in a statement.
Meanwhile, RFE/RL journalist Beka Beradze was released early on December 3 from a temporary detention center in Tbilisi.
Beradze was walking near the parliament building on December 1 when he and his brother, Tornike Beradze, were attacked by security forces and beaten before being taken away.
Beradze’s lawyer said his client was not working at the time of his arrest. He had been charged with petty hooliganism and disobeying a police officer, but his case was not sent to court and he was released.
Tornike Beradze described the scene inside a police minivan after he and his brother were arrested. There was a pool of blood on the floor of the vehicle, which was filled with protesters who had been beaten, Tornike Beradze told RFE/RL.
Tornike Beradze, who was taken to a clinic to be treated for a concussion, said riot police aggressively questioned his brother, who was walking in front of him and a friend. They told the police officers that, if the street was blocked, they would take a different route, but the police started throwing punches.
“I tried to call my brother, be careful, but when I looked back to say that, I had a few more fists in my face,” he told RFE/RL. “As many times as I lifted my head up, there were so many fists, all the special forces who met us were hitting me.”
The Interior Ministry said that 224 protesters were detained on administrative charges and three on criminal charges. In addition, three police officers were hospitalized and 113 others have required medical treatment, the ministry said on December 2.
Georgian pro-European President Salome Zurabishvili, who has sided with the protesters, said on X that many of the arrested protesters had injuries to their heads and faces. Some people were subjected to systematic beatings between arrest and transportation to detention facilities, she added.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has claimed that protests were “funded from abroad” and vowed “there will be no revolution in Georgia.”
Zurabishvili says people wanted free elections, not revolutions.
Kobakhidze has warned the opposition that “any violation of the law will be met with the full rigor of the law.”
Kobakhidze said earlier that Zurabishvili must leave office at the end of her term later this month. His announcement came despite her pledge to stay in office “until a president is legitimately elected” after Georgian Dream, which has ruled the country for over a decade, claimed national elections last month.
Zurabishvili and the opposition have alleged fraud and other improprieties and refuse to recognize the new parliament, which last week scheduled an indirect election for a new president for December 14 despite ongoing legal challenges.
One of those challenges suffered a setback on December 3 when Georgia’s Constitutional Court declined to hear a lawsuit seeking to annul the election results.
The case was brought forward by the pro-EU Zurabishvili, whose powers are mostly ceremonial. Her term ends next month.
A majority of Georgians support EU membership, and efforts to join the bloc are mandated in the Georgian Constitution.
But the ruling Georgian Dream’s enactment this year of what Zurabishvili and critics call a “Russian law” clamping down on NGOs and media financed from abroad, as well as a controversial bill on LGBT rights and public attacks on the West by Kobakhidze and other officials, have raised fears the current government is leading the country back into Russia’s orbit.
Western governments have questioned the October parliamentary elections — in which Georgian Dream claimed 54 percent of the vote — arguing the elections were marred by violations and Russian influence.
Georgia received EU candidate status in December 2023 but relations with Brussels have soured in recent months, beginning with the adoption of the controversial “foreign agent” law, which critics say threatens to publicly discredit thousands of media outlets and civil society groups as “serving” outside powers.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna announced on December 2 that Tallinn had jointly agreed with Latvia and Lithuania to introduce sanctions against “those who suppressed legitimate protests in Georgia.”
“Opponents of democracy & violators of human rights are not welcome in our countries,” Tsahkna said on social media.
The United States in July announced it would pause more than $95 million in assistance to the Georgian government, warning that it was backsliding on democracy.
