{"id":474465,"date":"2025-10-04T21:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/474465\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T21:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:58:11","slug":"police-fire-water-cannon-at-georgia-protesters-near-presidential-palace-elections-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/474465\/","title":{"rendered":"Police fire water cannon at Georgia protesters near presidential palace | Elections News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opposition protests turned violent as riot police deployed tear gas and water cannon near the presidential palace.<\/p>\n

Published On 4 Oct 20254 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

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Georgian riot police have deployed water cannon, pepper spray and tear gas to disperse protesters who tried to storm the presidential palace in Tbilisi during municipal elections.<\/p>\n

The clashes took place on Saturday after opposition groups, who had boycotted the vote, called for a \u201cpeaceful revolution\u201d against the governing Georgian Dream (GD) party, accusing it of authoritarianism and adopting pro-Russia policies.<\/p>\n

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Thousands of people gathered in Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue waving Georgian and EU flags in what organisers said was a show of defiance against GD. Some later barricaded nearby streets, lit fires and clashed with riot police.<\/p>\n

In the evening, a group of demonstrators moved towards the palace and attempted to break through the fence, according to witnesses.<\/p>\n

\"ProtestersProtesters attempt to break into the presidential palace grounds during an opposition rally on the day of local elections in Tbilisi, Georgia, October 4, 2025 [Irakli Gedenidze\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Internal Affairs later declared the rally unlawful, saying it had \u201cexceeded the norms set by law.\u201d Police then pushed protesters back with force.<\/p>\n

Georgia\u2019s health ministry, quoted by local media, said 21 security personnel and six protesters were injured in confrontations.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday is the outcome of a deep crisis which is absolutely formed by our pro-Russian and authoritarian government,\u201d protester Davit Mzhavanadze told local media, according to a report carried by Reuters. \u201cI think this protest will continue until these demands will be responded to properly from our government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governing GD, which announced it had won control in every municipality across the country of 3.7 million, rejected accusations of vote-rigging. The party, founded by billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, denies being pro-Moscow. It says it seeks EU membership while maintaining stability with Russia.<\/p>\n

Georgia, once seen as one of the most pro-Western states to emerge after the Soviet Union\u2019s collapse, has seen its ties with Europe and the United States deteriorate since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. The government froze accession talks with the European Union following last year\u2019s disputed parliamentary election, sparking months of demonstrations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s confrontation was the most serious flare-up in months after earlier protests<\/a> had lost momentum. Authorities had warned in advance that they would respond firmly to any attempt at what they described as a push for \u201crevolution\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opposition protests turned violent as riot police deployed tear gas and water cannon near the presidential palace. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6178,33,299,2307,1234,12,529,285,2579,332,657,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-474465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-georgia","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-police","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-protests","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-ukraine","19":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115318142803679261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}