Several protesters and opposition members are reported to have been beaten up by unidentified groups of people on May 8. One of them, a member of the UNM party, Dimitri Chikovani was attacked and severely beaten near his apartment building entrance in Sololaki district. Recalling the incident he said that he was attacked by two people in hoodies, by the pro-government thugs he said on the air of Formula TV. He was later found lying near the entrance and taken to the hospital.
Another activist who was attacked tonight is Lasha Ghvinianidze, one of the activists of the current demonstrations, a biker and one of the organizers of the bikers’ marches. He had bruises mainly on his head and lip and had to get five stitches.
Later in the evening, another activist, former career diplomat and professor at the University of Georgia, as well as a researcher at the Chavchavadze Center and brother of the leader of Girchi-More Freedom opposition party, Zurab Japaridze, Gia Japaridze, was also reportedly beaten in the yard of his home.
Meanwhile, over the last two days, many activists, opposition, media and civil society representatives, as well as ordinary citizens who have been taking part in the rallies against the Foreign Agents law have become targets of harassing and abusive telephone calls, whereby they and their family members have been threatened and insulted. The calls have caused huge outcry in the Georgian society, the local CSO Georgian Young Lawyers Association making a statement saying that taking into account the nature of the calls and their targets there is a “reasonable suspicion that the data are being processed illegally using the databases of the respective state authorities,” the GYLA says.
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