Violent incidents are “categorically unacceptable” - Georgian PM calls on “everyone to be patient”

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Tuesday said violent incidents were “categorically unacceptable” and called on “everyone to be patient”, in response to a journalist's question regarding the beating of an activist Davit Katsarava earlier today at the rally against the adoption of the law on transparency of foreign influence.

Kobakhidze claimed Katsarava had “insulted” the law enforcement officers, but stressed “this is not an excuse, the law enforcement structures should have maximum patience”.

The Head of the Government pointed out that an investigation had been launched into several cases and highlighted it as “higher than European and American investigation standards”.

Regarding these high standards, Kobakhidze said that only one individual had been arrested during last year's “violent” protests in Tbilisi - Lazare Grigoriadis, an activist who had been sentenced to nine years in prison for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at police officers and setting fire to a police vehicle during March 2023 protests in Tbilisi, and had been later pardoned by President Salome Zourabichvili in April.

Cruel methods [as an assessment of the incidents at the rally against the transparency bill]  - is a huge overstatement, I can tell you that. I categorically condemn such incidents. This kind of thing is not acceptable, I can repeat it again, but the use of exaggerated terms is also not correct”, the PM emphasised.

He stressed the “cruel methods” had been used by the former United National Movement government, when four protestors had been killed at a rally on May 26, 2011.

Kobakhidze added that since the ruling Georgian Dream party had come into power in 2012, they had established “higher than European and American standards” in Georgia, and once again urged everyone to act within “these standards”.