Protests outside the campaign office of Tbilisi mayoral candidate Kakha Kaladze turned violent Monday evening, leaving several demonstrators and journalists injured after clashes between alleged ruling party supporters and opposition activists.
The unrest comes as Georgia prepares for local elections in early October. Kaladze, the ruling Georgian Dream party’s nominee, has faced demonstrations since launching his campaign, with protesters accusing him and the party of ties to pro-Russian groups, and pelting him with eggs at campaign events
On Monday, protesters marched from the Public Broadcaster office to Kaladze’s campaign headquarters, where they were confronted by groups of alleged ruling party supporters. Demonstrators said men armed with metal rods arrived in several vehicles and started attacking people. Videos showed journalists and activists being beaten.
Although police arrived, protesters claimed officers failed to intervene or make arrests .
“Instead of stopping the violent groups who threatened and insulted us by name and used violence against both journalists and protesters, police tried to push us away. ” Netgazeti reporter Ketevan Khutsishvili told OCCRP. She added that she felt along with other members of the media.
Khutsishvili said police attempted to move her despite her identifying herself as press, calling her “a provocateur.” She said a man in an informal uniform then grabbed her hand and pushed her.
“He insulted my mother and then grabbed my hand very strongly in the direction of the police, and I fell there, basically, at the police. I have an injury on my hand,” she said.
Reporters from Publika identified the man as Khuta Pachkoria, a senior Interior Ministry official. The ministry has not commented.
Other journalists were also assaulted. Mariam Nikuradze, co-founder of the English-language outlet OC Media, said she was doused with water while filming.
“During the filming, one of the Georgian Dream supporters came and threw water at me. The police were also there,” Nikuradze told OCCRP. “When I told him ‘What are you doing, I'm the press,’ he threw water at me a second time. After he emptied the bottle, the police threw it away.”
She added that there was an assumption the government “deliberately dispersed the people and no one was arrested despite numerous documented cases of violence.”
Publika reporter Keto Mikadze said her phone was forcibly taken while she filmed the attacks.
“I don’t even know how to describe this. What I can say is that it’s becoming more dangerous every day to be a journalist—not to mention simply to live and move around safely,” she told OCCRP.
In total, five journalists were attacked, including Hungarian reporter László Róbert Mézes, who suffered facial injuries and was beaten unconscious. His phone was seized as he tried to film alleged supporters assaulting two Publika journalists and taking their phones.
“I said that I’m a journalist, as it’s visible on my press vest as well, and took a few steps after that person. Then he turned around and started to hit me,” Mézes told OCCRP.
“I fell to the ground and mainly all of them ran to me. I grabbed the leg of this person as there was nothing else to grab in my fall and all of them started to hit and kick me. Even after I stood up they continued, so the protesters had to pull me out from them.”.
He said he suffered a dislocated finger and facial injuries. Mézes added that “ they equally deliberately targeted journalists as well there yesterday, although we had our press vests, cards and other identifications there.”
Kaladze dismissed the protest as a “serious provocation.”
“And not for the first time,” he told a local reporter. “It has become a daily routine for these people to attack, insult, and swear.”
The Interior Ministry later announced it had opened an investigation into the alleged attacks, but confirmed no arrests had been made.
