FREEDOM FOR THE GEORGIAN POWER, OPINION ON THE INCIDENT IN TBILISI ON SEPT 27

Eleven activists of the Georgian youth nationalist movement were detained by police  on September 27 in Tbilisi during a commemoration action timed to tragic events that happened 23 years ago in the city of Sukhumy, the Abkhazian region.


Recall, the military conflict in Abkhazia broke out in 1992, when the Kremlin-backed separatists decided to proclaim the region's "independence." Shortly after it became the scene of fierce battles. The conflict in Abkhazia was in fact the first Russia's undeclared intervention to Georgia, during which the cases of ethnic cleansing of civic Georgian population by the Russian military. 

The annual action had been attended by representatives of various patriotic movements of Georgia as well as activists of football fan movement. The action was started on the central Shota Rustaveli avenue, near Metro station, then the nationalists marched down the Heroes’ Square, to the memorial of the fallen war heroes. Several participants of the action made speeches and gave interviews, after that the column moved to Aghmashenebeli ave.  This part of the Georgian capital is specified by a large number of Turkish cafes and other entertainment facilities. The point is that Turkey as well as Russia has been carying out its cultural expansion throughout Georgia and Armenia for many years. In recent years it has spread to the economic area. 

Thus, the activists initiated a small action by which they had expressed relation of young and national-conscious part of Georgian society to such kind of cultural and economic intervention. There were few damaged advertisement billboards, and lighting pyrotechnics in front of restaurants during this part of the action, but nothing more.

And this can be proved by videos from cameras, placed on the street. However, when the activists were heading back to the Rustaveli avenue they were surrounded by police, who had followed the column throughout the action. As the result 12 nationalists were arrested and charged with hooliganism and racial discrimination, they could face 4-7 years in prison. The activists have been released on bail now and are waiting for trial, which is scheduled for November 3rd.

The Ukrainian nationalists are know firsthand what means criminal prosecution for own national-conscious civil position, especially in Yanukovych's times, when Ukrainian judicial system had literally performed Moscow's tasks on suppression of patriots (unfortunately, there are many similar cases even now). The point is that Georgians know what's Moskow's invasion since they had faced it for several times. In 2014 Moskowites have invaded Ukraine and it were the nationalists, similar young boys (previously reviled as "nazi" and "hooligans") who first took arms up and went volunteer to the East of our country to fight the enemy. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, one we can be sure is that these guys, the young Georgian nationalists are able to do more than politicians.