The last protest rally carried out this year by Georgian non-governmental organizations and their supporters, which held rallies for three months, including the one against the visit of the Russian delegation, takes place on Friday in central Tbilisi in front of the parliament building, RIA Novosti reports.
The organizers of the rally from the public movement “This is embarrassing” announced that the protest rallies are coming to their end. According to them, although no demands will be put forward at the rally on Friday, the members of the movement and their supporters will continue to interfere with the ruling “Georgian Dream” party.
“For exactly three months, the Georgian people did not stop the rally, expressed their position, demanded the resignation of Gakharia (former Interior Minister, now the prime minister), who is guilty of a bloody dispersal of the rally. Rustaveli Avenue was blocked for weeks, it will be closed today, because we will be back again a lot. We are completing permanent protests”, – one of the members of the movement “It’s embarrassing”, Besarion Eloshvili, reported.
Patrol police brigades were mobilized on the territory adjacent to the parliament building. The entrance to the parliament building is limited.
Protest rallies expanded in the Georgian capital on June 20. The protesters opposed the participation of Russian delegates led by deputy Sergei Gavrilov in the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy. The radicals captured the parliament building, where Russian representatives were located. The special forces dispersed the rally, but on June 21 the protests continued. 240 people were injured, more than 300 were detained.
Against the backdrop of these events, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning Russian airlines from airfaring citizens from Russia to Georgia from July 8 and recommending tour operators and agents not to sell tickets to this country. Meanwhile, according to Georgian statistics, in 2018 every fifth tourist in Georgia was from Russia.