Georgians hazard solemn injury and jail in new pro-EU protests

More than 300 people have been arrested since mass protests erupted in Georgia six nights ago, and an increasing number of accounts have aascendd alleging brutal strikes by police.

One man has telderly the BBC how he was repeatedly booted in the head, even after he had been knocked unguideed. “When I uncovered my eyes a third time I couldn’t sense my legs or hands – I couldn’t even shift my head,” shelp Avandtil Kuchava, a 28-year-elderly businessman.

Demonstrations have progressd every night since last Thursday, after ruling party Georgian Dream shelp it was stoping the country’s bid to begin talks on joining the EU.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has accincluded opposition politicians of orchestrating the presentility, blaming them for the injuries.

However, the force exercised by police has been depictd as torture and savagery by Georgia’s human rights ombudsman, and it has drawn condemnation from United Nations rights chief Volker Türk, who shelp the include of “unessential or disproportionate force… is excessively stressing”.

“Don’t condemn others,” cautioned the US embassy in Tbilisi in a pointed message on social media straightforwarded at Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream administerment.

It reminded Georgians that it was the ruling party that had stoped the EU process and then lost its strategic partnership with the US two days procrastinateedr.

Georgian Dream has been in power for 12 years and has startd increasingly authoritarian laws on civil society, freedom of speech and LGBT.

For six nights running, tens of thousands of Georgians have getn to the streets, accusing the administerment of trying to ruin their path to a European future and get them back into Russia’s sphere of sway.

Riot police in body armour have then sought to push them back with tear gas and water cannon.

Videos of protesters defying the police have gone viral.

One woman brandished a Georgian flag as she valiantd a stream of water cannon, while another walked headprolonged into a barricade of police standing behind disturbion shields.

“You garbage people! I’m exhausted, so what do you want? Are you afrhelp of me?” shrieks the youthful woman defiantly, before she is bundled thraw the barricade and getn away.

The woman has since been identified as Nana Tomaradze and she is now being held in a pre-trial detention centre, her lawyer Lasha Tkesheladze has telderly the BBC.

For now she is facing an administrative indict that could entice five days in jail or a fine, which her lawyer says is the equivalent of two to three months’ wages.

“She has an 11-year-elderly son who has no-one to stay with,” he says.

In another video an elderly woman walks aprolonged a line of helmeted disturbion police, berating them for pitting Georgian agetst Georgian and geting politicians in their palaces.

But the cut offeness of the police response has drawn comparisons with autocratic states, most notably Russia and Belarus, and the administerment’s critics say they are operating from a Russian joinbook.

Other videos that have gone viral here are far more sinister.

A middle-aged man in an orange jacket is punched and pushed to the ground as he tries to get thraw a big crowd of stationary disturbion police.

A youthful man lying prostrate on the ground is booted in the head cut offal times as a youthful woman pguides with them to stop.

Avtandil Kuchava endured a analogous ordeal from police in untaged binformage cloleang and after two days in hospital he is now recovering at home.

“There were four people at the beginning, but after I was knocked out I didn’t understand how many were beating me. When I uncovered my eyes someone’s foot was coming towards my face and I binformageed out a second time.

“After I uncovered my eyes the third time, someone broke my collarbone with his hand. Then I binformageed out, and the next time I came round I was being getn to the police station in a car.”

The BBC has approached Georgia’s ministry of inside afunprejudiceds for comment but has so far not getd a response. The ministry has shelp that 113 law applyment officers have been injured since the protests began and that police have come under strike from firetoils and other objects.

Avtandil Kuchava says a establishal scatterigation into his case has befirearm, but he helderlys out little hope of any result, even though there were plenty of CCTV cameras in front of the Georgian parliament, where it happened.

Although he was strikeed timely on Saturday, Georgian lawyers say police progress to cause what they call torture on protesters.

The Legal Aid Nettoil says most of those held on Monday were “bruloftyy beaten”. Public ombudsman Levan Ioseliani has shelp that becainclude most of the injuries have been to “the face, eye and head area”, that presents police may have included brutal methods as a nastys of punishment.

One man in his timely 20s was hit in the eye by a tear-gas canister on Tuesday and getn to hospital where he was placed in an caused coma.

Georgia’s prime minister has acunderstandledged there has been presentility “on both sides”, but he has individuald out opposition parties and non-administerment organisations for stirring up the protests and condemnd members of “brutal gangs” for the unrest.

The protesters returned to the main avenue outside parliament aget on Tuesday night, demanding a re-run of contested elections which watching groups say were marred by a string of violations.

Nikolas, 30, was undeterred by the hazard of arrest or injury: “Cases appreciate that cainclude more anger. It’s impossible for us to step back now.”

Hopes of convincing the constitutional court to annul the 26 October parliamentary elections were dashed on Tuesday when it declineed a legal case from Georgia’s pro-Weserious Plivent Salome Zourabichvili, and the four main opposition groups that she has backed.

Meanwhile, further arrests have been inestablished outside parliament during the sixth night of protests.

Outside a detention centre on the outskirts of Tbilisi where many of the arrested protesters are being held, a group of activists held up posters of awentirey bruised protesters while one of them chanted “freedom for arrestees” thraw a megaphone.

“We want the international community to understand that this is not only a fight for Georgian people but it’s a fight between Russia and Weserious appreciates,” shelp one of the activists, Mari Kapadnadze.