Civil activist Zuka Berdzenishvili was attacked and physically assaulted in Tbilisi within an hour of Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili's Facebook post.
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"If I don't shoot you in the head," Zuka Berdzenishvili recalls one of the three assailants saying while hitting him.
"It's probably just a coincidence that within an hour of Shalva Papuashvili's post, Zuka was met by 'outraged citizens' at our house and physically assaulted. There were three of them; they were waiting in a car, they sneaked up from behind, and then ran away," wrote Berdzenishvili's friend, Salome Barker.
This morning, the Parliament Chairman published a post on social media, describing the citizens' actions of labeling the ruling party's MPs as traitors due to the adoption of the Russian Law as "an organized and politically motivated campaign of terror going on in the name of Europe." Zuka Berdzenishvili was also mentioned by Papuashvili.
"Just in the last few days, employees of three non-governmental organizations financed from the EU budget:
- They threatened members of parliament with a 'bullet in the head' (Levan Datunashvili, JAMnews).
- They called parliament members with threats and insults (Salome Nikolaishvili, Zuka Berdzenishvili, Shame Movement).
- A parliament member and their family were attacked and insulted in a public space (Mariam Tsitsikashvili, Grass / FactCheck).
It is clear that the scenes of the so-called 'outraged citizen' staged for the media are, in fact, an organized and politically motivated terror campaign, which is being carried out in the name of Europe. Donors, by not paying attention to the political extremism of the organizations they finance, are normalizing terror," Papuashvili wrote.
Zuka Berdzenishvili wrote a few days ago that he was ambushed in the village, but he survived the attack.
Organized violence against opponents of the Russian Law has become widespread.
On June 7, activist Niko Managadze, the founder of the student movement For Freedom, was attacked near the first building of Tbilisi State University. He is one of the students who meet Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze every Saturday near the university and protest the Russian Law.
On June 2, Tsotne Koberidze, an oppositional member of the Tbilisi City Council, was met and attacked at a bus stop near his home in Tbilisi. "They had electro shockers, they tried to beat, but they couldn't," said Koberidze.
Before that, they attacked and physically assaulted many other people.
Insulting and inciting violence posters are attached to the houses and offices of opponents of the Russian Law, graffiti is left, and their cars are damaged. Dimitri Samkharadze, a member of parliament and a member of the ruling party's political council from "Georgian Dream," admitted that he has organized a campaign of inciting hatred and violence against journalists, non-governmental organizations, and representatives of opposition political parties.
Investigative bodies have not investigated any cases of assault or other violence, and no one has been punished.
