Today, June 20, rallies will be held in front of the Parliament in Tbilisi and in Europe Square in Batumi, under the slogan Remember Gavrilov night. The organizer is the youth movement Dafioni.
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As one of the leaders of the movement, Zviad Tsetskhadze says, the victims of Gavrilov night will give a speech at the rally in front of the Parliament building, after which a procession will take place. The event is scheduled for 19:00.
Five years ago, on June 20, 2019, a session of the International Assembly of Orthodoxy was held in Tbilisi. As part of this event, Sergei Gavrilov, a deputy of the Russian Duma and the president of the assembly, arrived in Georgia. He took the seat of the Georgian Parliament chairman of and addressed the delegates of the assembly in Russian.
This event sparked a massive public protest and a rally of thousands, forcing Gavrilov and other members of the Russian delegation to leave Georgia.
The demonstrators gathered in front of the legislative body demanded the resignation of the then Speaker of the Parliament, Irakli Kobakhidze, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Giorgi Gakharia, and the head of the State Security Service, Vakhtang Gomelauri. They also called for the 2020 parliamentary elections to be held with a proportional system.
Later, the opposition leaders urged the rally participants to enter the Parliament building and seize it, which led to a crackdown on the rally. The Ministry of Internal Affairs used water cannons, large amounts of tear gas, and rubber bullets of various shapes to disperse the crowd. Video evidence showed that the rally participants were being shot at. According to official data, 240 people were hospitalized, 80 of whom were law enforcement officers. Due to their injuries, 18-year-old Mako Gomur and 31-year-old Giorgi Sulashvili lost their eyes. More than 30 journalists were injured.
On the night of June 20-21, the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrested a total of 342 people for violating public order and disobeying the legal demands of law enforcement officers.
Due to the protests, Irakli Kobakhidze, the current Prime Minister of the country, resigned from his position as Speaker of the Parliament, and Zakaria Kutsnashvili, the deputy from Georgian Dream who initiated the Assembly in Georgia, relinquished his mandate. As for the then Minister of Internal Affairs, Giorgi Gakharia, he became Prime Minister three months later and held this position until February 2021, when he resigned.
In May 2024, the European Court of Human Rights found a procedural violation of the rights guaranteed by the European Convention in the case of the June 20 demonstration raid and ordered Georgia to pay the victims a total of 153,600 euros in moral damages. According to the court's decision, Article 3 of the Convention was violated, which entails the state's obligation to investigate allegations of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or punishment.
