Protesters in Georgia took to the streets for a second day on Friday despite a police crackdown that left 240 people injured, with demonstrators calling for snap parliamentary polls and the ruling party’s oligarch leader to cede power. Around 15,000 people gathered in front of the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi amid anger at the rule of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party. The protesters want authorities to conduct electoral reform and then hold snap parliamentary polls. They also call for the interior minister’s resignation. Some protesters held up placards reading “Stop the USSR” and “Don’t shoot at us — we are your children”.
The new demonstrations come following an uproar after a Russian lawmmaker gave an address to parliament from the speaker’s seat on Thursday — a hugely controversial move in an ex-Soviet country that fought a war with Russia in 2008.–DT
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