TBILISI, May 1. /TASS/ Georgia’s riot police have started using rubber bullets against demonstrators protesting against the bill on foreign agents near the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi, a TASS correspondent reports from the scene.
At least one person was injured. He was taken to an ambulance to be given first aid.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili made an emergency video address in which she expressed support for the protesters against the foreign agents bill in Tbilisi outside parliament, but also urged them not to swing the gates so as not to provoke the police.
Several thousand people on Wednesday evening gathered for a protest rally outside the parliament building. At a certain point, the rally turned into clashes with the police. Some of the demonstrators approached the staff only entrance to the parliament on April 9 Street and began to swing the gates. The riot police in the building’s courtyard responded with tear gas and pepper gas and water jets. Stones, bottles and firecrackers were hurled at the police.
On May 1, the Georgian parliament after the second reading supported the bill On the Transparency of Foreign Influence, which Zourabichvili, the opposition and Western diplomats oppose as an an obstacle to the country’s integration into the European Union. The opposition and civil activists have been holding rallies against the bill in Tbilisi since April 15.
The ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party announced in early April that it had decided to reintroduce the bill to parliament. This happened a year after a similar initiative triggered mass protests, forcing the authorities to abandon the bill. Its text remains identical to last year’s, except for the term "agent of foreign influence." Instead, the term "organization promoting the interests of a foreign power" is used.