Police use water cannons and tear gas to disperse Georgian opposition supporters as they protest in front of the Parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on Thursday that Tbilisi will refuse EU accession talks until 2028. Photo by David Mdzinarishvili/EPA-EFE
Nov. 29 (UPI) — Georgia has suspended its bid to join the European Union, prompting thousands of protesters to take to the streets, where they clashed with police in the capital of Tbilisi.
Protesters damaged buildings, roads and surveillance cameras, set fires and erected barricades on the central Rustaveli Avenue. Authorities said officers were pelted with glass bottles, stones, metal objects and pyrotechnics.
Forty-three protests have been arrested, the Ministry of Interior said Friday in a statement, adding that 32 law enforcement officers were injured, some sustaining “severe” head injuries. Thirteen required surgery, and one officer remained hospitalized.
The ministry said it repeatedly used “legally sanctioned special measures,” referring to the tear gas and water canons seen fired and protesters, some waving EU flags, as in video shared online. The number of injured protesters was unclear, but there have been reports that some were beaten.
The protest continued into Friday morning, according to Georgia’s pro-EU president, Salome Zourabichvili, who was standing on the side of protesters.
In response to Frederic Petit, deputy of the French National Assembly, stating on X, “Georgia’s European dream is buried, the Kremlin’s dream has come true,” Zourabichvili told him not to count her country out yet.
“Georgia has been fighting for its European future for decades, even centuries, and has no intention of resigning,” she said.
The unrest and violence erupted after the country’s Russia-leaning prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, announced during a press conference Thursday that they would pause their EU accession and halt accepting grants from the 27-member bloc until 2028.
He made the announcement after his new government unanimously won a confidence vote in parliament following last month’s parliamentary elections that have been marred be accusations of irregularities.
The U.S. State Department, citing international and local observers, said after the election that the ruling Georgia Dream Party has been accused of misuse of public resources, vote-buying and voter intimidation.
Earlier Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the Oct. 26 election “for being neither free nor fair, representing yet another manifestation of the continued democratic backsliding of the country ‘for which the ruling Georgian Dream party is fully responsible,'” the bloc said in a statement.
It added vote manipulation, interference with election observers and media and manipulation involving electronic voting machines to the long list of election interference allegations against Kobakhidze’s government.
It also accused Russia of “systematic interference” in Georgia’s democracy through information campaigns, particularly an anti-West, pro-Russia conspiracy theory pushed by the Georgia Dream Party. The theory claims that Georgia will be dragged into Russia’s war in Ukraine by the United States and the EU.
The resolution calls for sanctions to be imposed on individuals responsible for Georgia’s democratic backsliding, including Kobakhidze.