Hundreds of Georgians injured in protests against the Russian occupation

Tens of thousands of Georgians converged on their parliament in Tbilisi yesterday in protest. What started as a peaceful protest quickly changed into violence as the masses of protesters tried to break into the parliament. The reason for that was the fact that a Russian politician and a close ally of Putin was invited by pro Russian Georgian politicians to give a speech in the Georgian Parliament.

While all hell was breaking loose outside the parliament, inside the parliament, opposition lawmakers blocked the presidium and demanded that the parliamentary speaker, interior minister and state security service chief all resign over the incident. The session was suspended, and the Russian politician, Sergei Gavrilov, later flew back to Russia. In case people are not aware (because this fact is rarely mentioned in the international media), Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and occupied 20% of Georgia's territory.

For the protesters it was unthinkable that an official represtative of Russia, the country currenty occupying Georgian lands, would speak in the national parlament. The Georgian government ordered the police to open fire on the protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets injuring hundreds of people. Police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd at regular intervals for hours on end, sending people fleeing to adjacent streets, only to return. Later, in the early hours of Friday, they used rubber bullets and water cannon. Hundreds more were later rounded up and arrested by the police.

This of course got almost zero attention in global media, as anything that has to do with Georgia does. Seems that the world either completely forgot about or just continuously ignores the ongoing Russian occupation of Georgia. Read more about the ongoing Russian occupation of Georgia.