Georgia sees its fifth night of consecutive protests against the government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union.
At a press conference with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Jolie expressed Canada’s solidarity with the Georgian people, and said they “are very concerned about what Russia is trying to do in Georgia.”
On Sunday, the three Baltic states announced they would impose national sanctions against those “who participate in the suppression of legitimate protests in Georgia.”
Jolie said Canada would follow suit and “will sanction key individuals and also businesses, entities that are involved in either human rights violations or corruption,” based on their own sanctions regime.
It comes as protesters returned to the steps of Georgia’s parliament in Tbilisi on Monday for a fifth night of demonstrations after the government, who were denounced by its critics for allegedly rigging its victory results, decided to halt progress towards European Union (EU) membership.
Protesters, who held posters denouncing Russia and carried EU and Georgian flags, threw rocks at the police, to which officers responded with water cannons.
On Monday, Georgia’s Interior Ministry said 224 protesters were detained on administrative charges and three arrested on criminal charges. 113 police officers needed medical treatment while three others were hospitalized after clashes with protesters, who hurled fireworks at police.
Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili, who has been vocal about her support of the protests, said many of the arrested protesters had injuries to their heads and faces, including broken bones and eye sockets. She added that some people were subject to systematic beatings between arrest and transportation to detention facilities.
On social media platform X, the pro-EU head of state said “this is an attack on freedom of expression and the right to protest – basic rights violated, not to mention the way people are arrested and treated once detained.”
The protests have gradually been spreading beyond the capital, with crowds taking to streets of regional towns and cities, such as Batumi, Kutaisi, and Rustavi. Schools and universities across the country also held strikes and walkouts.
At a briefing at the Government House on Monday, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that the European integration process has not been postponed, but instead “will continue with maximum intensity.”
The Prime Minister said diplomats received “clear instructions that Georgia’s European integration process must continue with maximum intensity,” during a meeting at the foreign ministry. “This is reality. Everything else is simply falsehood deliberately spread by the radical opposition and its associated media.”
Kobakhidze added that the Head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Pascal Alizard, wrote to Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili about future cooperation following the first session of the new parliament.
He said the letter also emphasized that the elections were held under competitive conditions as they “offered citizens a broad choice, were well-administered, and candidates had the freedom to conduct campaigns.”
