Protesters in Tbilisi and Batumi demand to investigate high-profile murders

Several dozen people have held protests in Tbilisi and Batumi, demanding an efficient investigation into the recent murders of a football player and a young woman. Three participants of the rally in Tbilisi were detained for disobeying the police, but were soon released.

On July 22, protesters in Tbilisi went to the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) demanding from the police to investigate the murders of the 19-year-old athlete, Giorgi Shakarashvili, and the 23-year-old Tamar Bachaliashvili, as well as a number of other deaths that have recently occurred in the country, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

"There has never been anything like this in Georgia before that people were killed so massively and cases were not investigated. Murders and acts of violence occur almost every day, but the police is idling," Levan Gogol, one of its organizers of the action, explained to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

At about 11:00 p.m. local time, law enforcers detained three protesters, who tried to block off Gulua Street in front of the MIA building, which led to a scuffle with policemen. All the three were later released.

Residents of Batumi held a similar action; the participants thereof gathered spontaneously when they learned that Georgian activists were holding a rally in front of the MIA building in Tbilisi, Mziya Kodelidze, one of the organizers of the protest in Adjara, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"140 people gathered in Era Square," Mr Kodelidze has clarified, adding that the rally in Batumi passed without clashes with the police.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 23, 2020 at 02:49 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.