Crowds hold rally in Kutaisi, protesting construction of Namakhvani HPP
The demonstrators have urged the government to consider the scale of the public protest and suspend the contract with Turlish company ENKA for the construction of Namakhvani HPP. Photo: Publika.ge.
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Crowds protesting the construction of Namakhvani HPP in the Rioni Gorge have moved from the village of Gumati to Kutaisi city earlier today, where they are holding a rally now.
Kutaisi residents and others from different regions have also joined the large rally.
The demonstrators have urged the government to consider the scale of the protest.
They state that the Turkish company ENKA will not be able to construct the HPP ‘until all questions are answered about the project.’
The demonstrators who have been protesting the construction for 170 days say that the government tries to label them as a radical group.
Demonstrators marching to Kutaisi City Hall. Video: Publika.ge.
We have read the contract well and we are well aware of what we protest,” a local leader of demonstrators Varlam Goletiani has stated.
The Ministry of Economy and Agriculture of Georgia have said in a joint statement earlier today that their door remains open for a dialogue.
We have not suspended a dialogue with scientists, experts and NGOs over the project. We believe that the dialogue has made the project more transparent. We hope that specialists will have no questions regarding the benefits of the HPP after familiarising themselves with all the studies available,” said the ministries.
The demonstrators have demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.
They said that economy and agriculture ministers ‘have already escaped our questions’ in March and the ‘communication with the same officials will be useless’.
The Georgian Patriarchate has expressed concern over the tension in the Rioni Gorge and has urged for a ‘constructive dialogue’.
The patriarchate said that raising ultimatums will not work and that the dialogue should not be formal.
The propesters moved to Kutaisi after the police erected an iron wall in the village of Gumati earlier today, hampering the demonstrators to move to the village of Namakhvani where they have been protesting the construction of the HPP until April 11.
On April 11 police removed the protesters’ tents ‘because of the treats of flooding.
Georgian law enforcers have erected an iron wall in the Rioni River Gorge in western Georgia, in the village of Gumati earlier today to hamper the movement of demonstrators to the village of Namakhvani. Locals have been protesting the construction of Namakhvani HPP by the Turkish company ENKA for 170 days on.
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.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has spoken about the importance of unity and expressed support for Ukraine amid the movements of Russian troops in its border in her annual speech in the state legislature earlier today.
Demonstrators who have been protesting the construction of the Namakhvani HPP in the Rioni Gorge of western Georgia for more than 170 days are ready for a ‘constructive dialogue’ with the Georgian government. The local organisers of the rally met government representatives in Kutaisi yesterday and put forward their demands. Ruling party MP Sozar Subari, who attended the meeting, said that one of the key reasons for the protests was a lack of communication.
The government of Georgia will announce today whether it will meet some of the demands of locals protesting the construction of the Namakhvani HPP in the Rioni Gorge of western Georgia.
Two individuals have allegedly been detained as police and protesters of Namakhvani hydro power plant construction clashed in Rioni Gorge, Varlam Goletiani, the leader of Rioni Gorge Defenders’ civic movement said.