UNM head announces mass hunger strike demanding ex-pres. Saakashvili's release
Melia said that the hunger strikes will continue until Saakashvili's release. Photo: Mzia Saganelidze (RFE/RL)
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Opposition United National Movement (UNM) Head Nika Melia has announced a mass hunger strike demanding imprisoned former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili's release during the UNM rally held in central Tbilisi this evening.
Melia said that the hunger strikes will continue until Saakashvili's release.
He added that people will start hunger strikes on Kakheti Highway, where the UNM central office is located.
We do not have any other right except to attack, except to coerce, in order to make the regime step back... For this reason, I am now going to Kakheti Highway with my friends. I know that many of you will come there until Mikheil Saakashvili is released from captivity. This act of hunger will be termless, Melia told his supporters.
UNM members and supporters gathered in central Tbilisi this evening to demand Saakashvili's release. Photo: Mzia Saganelidze (RFE/RL)
Saakashvili released an open letter earlier this evening, saying that the Georgian people should 'unite' in order to overcome the political crisis in the country.
[What] unites us is not a thirst for revenge, but a common goal to save our country and return it to the Euro-Atlantic family, he wrote.
Saakashvili was arrested on October 1 after his clandestine return from eight years in political exile.
The former president fled Georgia in 2013, a year after the UNM lost the parliamentary elections to Georgian Dream.
In 2018, Georgian court convicted Saakashvili in absentia on two counts of abuse of power and sentenced him to six years in prison.
The former president is now facing additional charges, including illegal seizure of property, embezzlement, illegal rally dispersal, and illegal border crossing.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has met with MPs Khatia Dekanoidze from the United National Movement (UNM) and Salome Samadashvili from Lelo for Georgia faction earlier today, where the ongoing issues in the country were discussed, including ‘political justice.'
Imprisoned former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili stated on his 54th birthday today in Gori military hospital that he returned to Georgia after eight years of political exile because the country ‘stopped development,’ and that he is ready to die if Georgia ‘is not freed’ from its current leadership.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili says that her recent initiative, which aims to reconcile various political parties in Georgia to end polarization, is complicated to carry out but the process is ‘very transparent.’
Georgia's former president Mikheil Saakashvili says that ‘national reconciliation,’ referring to making peace between the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and his United National Movement, ‘is the best outcome for everyone.’
A total of nine tents have been set out on Kakheti Highway close to the central office of the opposition United National Movement (UNM) party with about 300 people on hunger strike, following the announcement of a mass protest demanding ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili’s release yesterday at a rally in central Tbilisi, news agency IPN reports.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has said that 'the language of ultimatum, hunger strikes' do not relieve tensions during her speech at the 2021 Ambassadorial Conference held online earlier this evening.
About 200 protesters demanding former president Mikheil Saakashvili’s release from prison have stopped a mass hunger strike announced on December 21, following the former president’s request to do so on January 1.