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July 8 (UPI) — A Pride festival in Tbilisi, the capital of the nation of Georgia, was canceled Saturday after police failed to guard against right-wing activists who set out to disrupt the event, organizers said.
Far-right demonstrators, many affiliated with the group Alt-Info, rallied on a Tbilisi thoroughfare to block the gathering shortly before its scheduled start in what organizer Tbilisi Pride called a “pre-coordinated” effort that had been “agreed to” between the group and the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
During the attack, anti-LGBTQ mobs torn down festival decorations and clashed with police. Several arrests were made during the confrontations.
“All three roads leading to the area will be blocked. There will be no celebration today. The Georgian people will be the guarantors of this,” right-wing activist Girogi Kardava said before the assault, according to Civil.ge, a daily news website run by the non-governmental organization UN Association of Georgia.
Witnesses said that instead of adequately stopping the attackers, police evacuated organizers and warned that people should avoid the march due to security reasons.
Tbilisi Pride said it was given “solid security guarantees” from the Ministry of Internal Affairs but that the security forces had failed to live up to their promises.
“People were not given the opportunity to hold their own event in a closed space that was planned in advance, agreed with the law enforcement officers, which the law enforcement structures had promised to protect,” Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili said in a press briefing after the event was cancelled.
“I want to call on the Ministry of Internal Affairs to actually prevent all violent acts — this is their duty and it is called law enforcement,” the president said, according to a translation by the Open Caucasus Media news website.
Alt-Info leader Zurab Makharadze called the actions a “victory” at a post-cancelation rally outside of the Georgian Parliament building, the website reported, while the founder of the Georgia Above All right-wing movement echoed his sentiment, saying “The victory is sealed.”