Documents on Democracy

Georgia

Massive demonstrations took place in Tbilisi in April and May against the Georgian Dream party's "Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence." The law, which entered into force on June 3, requires NGOs and media organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as "agents of foreign influence." Protesters were met with violent police crackdowns. Luka Gviniashvili, one of the young protesters, recounted the experience in an essay published by Coda, excerpted below:

For us, this law means the difference between having a functioning democracy and existing as a puppet for Russia. It means losing our freedom of speech.

On the morning of April 15, the protests began.

My friends and I have joined the demonstrations every day. … I believe that if we can inspire enough people to get out on the streets, we can overwhelm the brutality we are fighting against. For now, the state is fighting back hard, with tear gas, rubber bullets, [a] water cannon, and by simply beating protesters to a pulp. I'm worried things are going to descend into even more violence, though I hope we can avoid it.

On the night of April 30, I put on a gas mask and assigned myself a task: deactivate as many tear-gas canisters as I could. …

Things escalated fast that night. Protesters surged onto Tbilisi's main street, Rustaveli Avenue, and as they did, police unleashed a torrent of tear-gas canisters onto us from the side streets, scattering the crowd. I ran forward into the impact zone, grabbing the canisters and submerging them into bottles of water that I had previously set out. It was a race to get to the canisters before they started spinning out of control.

The police began advancing from the side streets and blasting everyone in the area with [a] water cannon, throwing them to the ground. They didn't care if they hit protesters or journalists—and they hit both. Officers also beat up anyone they could get their hands on. A no-man's-land emerged between the protesters and the police. In the buffer zone were journalists—and me. …

It was time to build barricades, French style. … I started dragging metal barrier fences together and getting people to help. I then told people to gather up trash cans. … Five guys started to help me. From that moment on, I was standing in the buffer zone in front of the barricades, directing people like an orchestra conductor. I got them to add umbrellas to the structure—a tactic inspired not by the French, but by prodemocracy protesters in Hong Kong—to protect from the water cannon.

The crowd of police just watched as I directed the resistance. They recorded everything, sussing me out. Then, they mobilized the arresting squad. The police surged forward, grabbing anyone they could—journalists, protesters, they didn't care. I started to run, but … I slipped on the wet ground.

A bunch of masked police jumped on me and began beating me mercilessly. … They started hitting the back of my head hard, and all I could do was protect my eyes and curl into the fetal position. They dragged me behind the police line and continued laying into me. Then they surrounded me, taunting me, telling me to hit myself and say that I was a little bitch. My legs were like jelly, and I could barely stand. I did whatever they ordered, desperate, until they threw me into a van. Already, there was a lump the size of a bar of soap on the back of my head, with deep-blue panda rings forming around my eyes.

They hauled me to prison, but it took them six hours to get me inside. There was already a queue of other protesters they'd caught. My captors waited in the van with me, watching Russian TikToks for hours on end. Honestly, that was almost worse than the beating.

The atmosphere inside the cells was desperate. People were silently pacing up and down, their spirits hitting rock bottom. Police were bringing in more protesters all the time, their radios crackling. I was...