Interior Ministry explains ‘presence of ambassadors’ in parliament during June 20 rally dispersal
Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia spoke about the June 20 rally dispersal in a TV interview on July 11. Photo: Interior Ministry press office.
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The Georgian Interior Ministry has provided an explanation of the Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia’s statements made yesterday that he watched the storm on the Georgian parliament building on June 20 with foreign ambassadors, from the parliament building of Georgia.
The opposition interpreted the statement that Gakharia ‘tried to also shift the responsibility of the dispersal onto the ambassadors and complicate relations between Georgia and its western allies.’
Rallies were sparked in Tbilisi after a Russian MP occupied a seat of the Georgian parliamentary speaker on June 20, during an international, religious forum. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
Deputy Interior Minister Nino Javakhadze said that only the German ambassador Hubert Knirsch was in the building on June 20.
We were in telephone contact with other ambassadors after the situation got tense. It was natural, as the ambassadors were interested in the developments in central Tbilisi. The minister meant this and not that several ambassadors were present in the parliament building,” Javakhadze said.
The German ambassador confirmed his presence in parliament, adding that he was only watched the situation as decisions in such situations are made by the government.
Gakharia spoke about the June 20 rally dispersal to TV channel Pirveli yesterday.
Georgian Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia gave his second televised explanation about the June 20 rally on Rustaveli Avenue in central Tbilisi. Speaking with Inga Grigolia, the anchor of Tbilisi-based TV Pirveli, Gakharia said the initial protest rally “was not peaceful”.
Anti-occupation demonstrations will renew for the 20th day today at 7 p.m. with the demand of the resignation of Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharaia, after anti-occupation and anti-LGBT rallies ended peacefully at the parliament building of Tbilisi yesterday.
Police has blocked the road on Rustaveli Avenue to separate two ongoing demonstrations on Rustaveli Avenue, as tensions between an anti-occupation rally and a counter-protest involving clerics and nationalist groups are high in the capital.
Deputy Interior Minister Natia Mezvrishvili says that police were attacked during the June 20 rally in Tbilisi and they were forced to defend themselves and use force. Mezvrishvili says that it is less important who made the order, or whether the police acted without the order of top officials.
The human rights defender Sopho Verdzeuli said the Tbilisi protest of June 20 in front of the parliament of Georgia “became violent” after around 10 p.m. “Quite a lot of demonstrators were physically attacking police officers from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m., grabbing their equipment, pulling police officers out of the cordon”, Verdzeuli wrote on her Facebook page.
An employee of the Georgian Interior Ministry has been detained for possible abuse of power during the Tbilisi rallies on June 20-21, at the parliament building of Georgia, the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office says.
Three civilians who received injuries during the June 20 rally dispersal in central Tbilisi have been granted victim status, the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office has reported.