Updated at 21:29
A protest rally organized by the opposition United National Movement (UNM) in central Tbilisi demanding the release of ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who was detained on October 1 a day before the municipal elections has ended.
Earlier at 21:04
Calling the former president a ‘political prisoner’ UNM, the party founded by Saakashvili, claims and that only Saakashvili is able to play a decisive role in changing the current Georgian Dream government.
Mikheil Saakashvili has tweeted from prison:
Day 14 of a hunger strike. Georgian people gathered on a main square & around streets of Tbilisi demanding freedom of a political prisoner #MikheilSaakashvili #FreeSaakashvili @ErinBurnett @CNN @BBCWorld pic.twitter.com/LK0I3D43gQ
— Mikheil Saakashvili (@SaakashviliM) October 14, 2021
UNM Chair Nika Melia told the crowd that they will not stop until Saakashvili’s eventual release. He hereby thanked everyone who have gathered at the Freedom Square despite their political preferences.
At the rally on Liberty Square, @SaakashviliM written address from prison calls for the Georgian people to stand against hatred and oppression
— Mtavari TV (@MtavariChannel) October 14, 2021
More: https://t.co/lnSvq1hKBy pic.twitter.com/PLtc8GbvN4
On his part Saakashvili has sent a letter from prison calling his supporters to ‘stand up against the regime of former chair of the ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili, 'which is dragging our homeland to Putin's Russia’.
Why am I in Georgia now? I am here because I can not be happy even in Ukraine which I hold dear, I cannot be anywhere else when I see so much cruelty and misery in my beloved homeland”, he wrote.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili claims that Saakashvili returned to Georgia, after eight years in political exile, ‘with a single goal - to spark tension, destabilization, and even to commit murder.’
Saakashvili, who is a citizen of Ukraine and chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, was convicted in Georgia in absentia in 2018 and was sentenced to six years in prison for abuse of authority.
He has also been charged with four other offences related to the illegal seizure of property, embezzlement, illegal rally dispersal, and illegal border-crossing.