ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTERS AND POLICE CLASH IN TBILISI

PanARMENIAN.Net
07.05.2009 15:02 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The clashes between police and Saakashvili
adversaries were the first major unrest since anti-government
demonstrations began in early April in Tbilisi.

They come a day after the authorities said they had thwarted an army
mutiny at a base outside the capital.

Later in the evening, opposition leaders and supporters gathered
outside parliament for a rally, as they have daily since 9 April.

Attendances at the rallies have dwindled but tensions in the city
appear to be rising.

The protesters are calling for the resignation of President Mikhail
Saakashvili over his leadership record and his handling of Georgia’s
war with Russia last summer.

Police accused protesters of trying to storm their base, and television
pictures showed police and demonstrators trading blows with batons
and sticks across a metal gate dividing them.

Several hundred people converged on the building, where riot police
took position in the grounds. The Interior Ministry said 22 protesters
and six policemen were wounded. The opposition said several of its
leaders were also treated in hospital.

Riot police used batons on protesters trying to enter a police
compound where three people were being held over the alleged beating
of a local journalist.

The drama cast a shadow over the launch of NATO military exercises
in Georgia on Wednesday, condemned by Russia as "muscle-flexing"
on its southern border.

Georgia has been braced for unrest since the opposition began daily
protests on April 9, blocking streets in downtown Tbilisi and demanding
Saakashvili quit over his record on democracy and last year’s war,
when Russia crushed a Georgian assault on breakaway South Ossetia,
BBC reports.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress