Photo Story | November 30 Protests Over GD’s Foreign Policy U-Turn
On November 29 and throughout the night of November 30, protests were held across Georgia against the GD’s U-turn in foreign policy. The epicenter of the protests was traditionally Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi, where around 100,000 people gathered in the evening by the Georgian parliament building. The demonstrators stayed through the night, despite several waves of especially brutal dispersals by riot police, special forces and so-called “men in black”, unidentified men dressed in black with rucksacks, masks and weapons (rubber bullet guns) who accompanied the dispersals and attacked individual demonstrators. These masked dark-clad figures have been particularly violent during dispersals, often preceding or following the riot police.
Violence by these unidentifiable actors has been a disturbing and prominent feature of the excessive police violence of the past two days. The other feature of the recent protests is that the mentioned units of MIAs have their faces covered, either with black balaklavas or medical masks. This, together with the absence of insignia, allows them to attack without having to take responsibility for their actions.
One more distinctive feature of the recent protests in Georgia has been the targeting of journalists. In addition to the multiple cases of attacks on journalists on previous night, on November 29-30 more journalists have been subjected to violence by the MIA, including TV Pirveli journalist Mariam Gaprindashvili who was seriously injured during the rally and had to be hospitalized.
The protesters, after each wave of dispersal, would regroup and return, erecting barricades and setting fires to get warm, as the nights in Tbilisi are chilly with temperature close to zero degrees Celsius.
The MIA used water cannons, where water is mixed with chemical agents to make it impossible to breathe and causing burning, tear spray, gas canisters and batons to disperse the crowd. The majority of the demonstrators were young people, similar to the protests against the Foreign Agents Law in the spring of 2024 and 2023.
There have been multiple reports and footages showing the police violence towards the protesters. One such footage shows the unidentifiable “black men” violently gang-beating an apparently helpless man. Another footage that went viral on the social networks and media and sparked outrage was shot at dawn, showing these “men in black” kick a helpless young man in the head, who is apparently already in distress and lying on the ground. First one and then another kick him, leaving him unconscious on the ground.
We prepared the photo story depicting the mood and moments of November 29-30 protest.
