10 mar 2023 8:27 p.m
A group of supporters of former President Mikheil Saakashvili who fought on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces arrived in Georgia to carry out a “revolutionary scenario”. This was stated by the Georgian politician Gia Volski.
According to Gia Volski, one of the leaders of former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party, a group of supporters of former President Mikheil Saakashvili who fought on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces have arrived in Georgia to present a “revolutionary scenario” to realize.
“It is safe to say that a certain group of supporters of the National Movement and Saakashvili came from Ukraine. These are fighters who, with this youthful energy, will try not to take this revolutionary process off the agenda, so that everything will be in one Civil war, a breakup, a confrontation degenerates,” quoted RIA Novosti the representative of the ruling party.
According to him, these people aim to destabilize Georgia and “disconnect” it from its own interests. According to Volski, misinformation is being used about this development, according to which disproportionate force was allegedly used against the participants in the rally.
However, according to Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Saakashvili will remain in prison for a long time. How RIA Novosti summarizes, the former president was arrested in Georgia on October 1, 2021 and faces multiple criminal charges. He was convicted in absentia in the cases of the murder of banker Sandro Girgvliani and the beating of MP Valery Gelashvili. Saakashvili was sentenced to three years in prison in the first case and six years in the second.
In addition, there are still cases before the courts regarding the dissolution of the opposition rally on November 7, 2007, and the takeover of the television station Imedi and pending in cases of misappropriation of government funds.
On Thursday, the Georgian parliament voted against the draft law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence” in the second reading. The proposed law would have required individuals, non-governmental organizations and the media that receive 20 percent or more of their funding from abroad to register with the Georgia Ministry of Justice as “agents of foreign influence”. Failure to comply could result in fines and up to five years in prison.
However, protests continued Thursday night and Friday morning, with those gathered saying they want to ensure the bill is abandoned and secure the release of more than 100 protesters who had previously been arrested.
Georgia’s interior ministry said on Friday it had released all 133 people arrested during mass rallies in front of parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday. It stated that alleged “incidents of violence” at the demonstrations were still being investigated.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared this week’s rallies to the Maidan protests in Ukraine in 2014, which ousted a pro-Kremlin president from power. According to Lavrov, the law is just “a pretext to launch an attempt to forcibly change the government in Tbilisi.”
More on the subject – Georgia: Tens of thousands take to the streets against “agent law” – government withdraws law
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