Police arrest UNM-affiliated activists for violence at Namakhvani HPP rally
Piruz Tsulukidze has a previous crime record which is connected with Chechen terrorists. Photo: Mtavari TV.
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Georgian law enforcers have detained wrestler brothers Piruz and Rezo Tsulukidze from the country’s western Adjara region and four others from the same region earlier today for group violence during a rally in the village of Gumati against Namakhvani HPP on April 12.
The Georgian Interior Ministry has confirmed the arrest and stated that the six detainees attacked three local activists during the rally and also damaged a car.
One of the victims, Avtandil Akhvlediani, says that Tsulukidze and his accomplices arrived in Gumati to protest the construction of the HPP.
However, Akhvlediani says that they (local activists and organisers of the rally) requested Tsulukidze and his friends to leave the site ‘because they were affiliated with a political party (the United National Movement) and were very aggressive.’
They were too aggressive, cursing and 30 individuals attacked three of us,” Akhvlediani said.
Tsulukidze’s relatives say that what happened in Gumati was a ‘government-staged provocation.’
Piruz Tsulukidze, who is a two-time European champion in Greco-Roman wrestling, has a previous criminal record.
He was arrested back in 2013 for hiding Chechen Iusup Lakaev who was wanted for murder and crossed into Georgia illegally.
Georgian Economy Minister Natia Turnava says that the government has plans to hold ‘a large meeting’ in the coming days with all interested parties regarding the controversial Namakhvani HPP project. Residents of Rioni Gorge in western Georgia have been protesting the construction of Namakhvani HPP by the Turkish company ENKA for about 170 days.
Locals who have been protesting the construction of Namakhvani HPP for 168 days by Turkish company ENKA are now holding a rally in the village of Gumati, Imereti region after police dismantled their tents in the village of Namakhvani yesterday ‘due to possible threats of flooding.’
The Georgian Interior Ministry has announced that the tents of activists protesting the construction of the Namakhvani hydro power plant (HPP) in the western Georgian region of Imereti will be removed after a man drowned in Rioni River yesterday.
Locals, activists and politicians gathered in the western Georgian town of Kutaisi to protest the construction of the Namakhvani hydro power plant (HPP) in the Imereti region.