Protesters Gather at Midnight Rally After Clash

Few thousand people were gathered outside the Parliament after midnight, following a clash between police and protesters late on Wednesday outside the Tbilisi police headquarters.

Opposition leaders addressing the protesters were justifying the march on the Tbilisi police headquarters, which led to the clash leaving dozens of people injured.

Nino Burjanadze, former parliamentary speaker and leader of Democratic Movement-United Georgia party, told the protesters that their march aimed at demanding release of three activists from the youth opposition groups, who, she said were beaten up in the police custody.

Irakli Alasania, the leader of Alliance for Georgia told protesters: “It is our joint duty to put an end to this violence.”

“We will not resort to violence and we demonstrated it today when [the protesters] arrived at police [headquarters] with bare hands to demand release of those young people against whom the violence was used after the arrest. In response we have received bullets and blood. It is the duty of each of us to stop it. We should do our best to prevent civil confrontation. Our unity and calmness is the only way which will lead us to our goal.”

“When the authorities commit illegal acts, we are not obliged to tolerate it,” Eka Beselia of the Movement for United Georgia party told the rally. “This government should go and everything should be done for that; we have the legal right to do that.”

“We give criminals and terrorist a deadline till 5pm [on May 7] to release hostages [referring to three activists], otherwise we will ourselves set them free; we can not tolerate it any more,” Koba Davitashvili, the leader of Party of People, told the rally.

“Maniac, ill person is the leader of this country. Saakashvili is dangerous. Saakashvili is Georgia’s problem,” Gubaz Sanikidze of the National Forum told the protesters and also added referring to those persons who, according to opposition, are engaged in attacks on opposition activists: “We know your names, we know your addresses, but we will not read this list now; however, hours remain before we read this list and Georgia does not lack hunters.”

Opposition politicians were still addressing protesters outside the Parliament, whose numbers dwindled, as of 2:40am.

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