Updated: Demonstrators, police clash, as protesters try to break police cordon to enter parliament

Law enforcers try to prevent demonstrators from breaking police cordon to enter the building of the parliament of Georgia. Photo: Nino Aladashvili/Agenda.ge

Agenda.ge, 20 Jun 2019 - 22:10, Tbilisi,Georgia

Updated: 22:10

The police Special Forces are trying to prevent the protesters from entering the building of the Georgian parliament in central Tbilisi.

The Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia who went to the parliament said this is an attempt "to storm the state institutions" and called on the demonstrators to obey the police.

Earlier: 20:26

Protesters have blocked traffic on the central Rustaveli  Avenue for a rally held after today’s incident in the Georgian parliament, when a Russian MP addressed the audience from the seat of the Georgian parliamentary speaker during the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy.  

The United National Movement opposition said the government has one hour time to dismiss Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, Minister of Internal Affairs Giorgi Gakharia and head of the State Security Service Vakhtang Gomelauri for letting Russian MPs into Georgia and in the parliament.

Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

The Georgian Dream ruling party stated that the Russian MPs are leaving the county and the assembly will not be held in the way it started.

The party said the behavior of Russian MP Sergey Gavrilov was “alarming and unacceptable”, when he took the seat of Georgian parliamentary speaker and addressed the audience from the high tribune.

Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

The ruling party says that the organisers of the event must provide explanations as to why this happened.

Now, we [the people] should not act in a way to strain the situation further and allow the enemy to use the situation for its interests,” the ruling party says.

Georgian Foreign Ministry official Vladimir Konstantinidi says the Foreign Ministry agrees with the ‘fair’ public protest regarding the Russian MPs’ visit to Georgia.