Protests across Georgia against suspension of EU accession talks enter second week

Critics accuse police of using increasingly violent tactics to disperse the rallies with more than 100 people treated for injuries.

Transcript

00:00Mass protests across Georgia against the government decision to suspend negotiations on joining

00:07the European Union have entered a second week. Police have cracked down on protesters with

00:13increasing force using water cannons and tear gas to try to break up the nightly rallies.

00:19More than 300 protesters have been detained and over 100 people have been treated for

00:24injuries.

00:25We fight for our freedom and this is a main like a fight for us. If we are not going to

00:30be the part of the European Union and if we are not going to be free from the Russian

00:37like you know the oppression, then I don't think that we are going to be in this world.

00:42The ruling Georgian dream retained control of parliament in the disputed 26th of October

00:47election, a vote widely seen as a referendum on Georgia's EU aspirations. The opposition

00:53accused the governing party of rigging the vote with the help of neighboring Russia to

00:57keep the Moscow friendly Georgia dream party in power. But the protests against the election

01:03became angrier and spread beyond Tbilisi after the decision last Thursday to put EU accession

01:08talks on hold until at least 2028. That was in response to a European Parliament resolution

01:14that criticized the elections as neither free nor fair. The EU granted Georgia candidate

01:20country status in 2023. But Brussels put that process on hold earlier this year after

01:26the passage of a controversial foreign influence law widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.