Due to the final event of the Georgian Dream election campaign, the Animal Monitoring Agency removed homeless dogs from Freedom Square and the surrounding streets. Mariam Tsertsvadze, the founder of the non-governmental organization Animal Project, was among those who shared this information. The dogs were loaded into a vehicle and taken away, she said.
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"Can you explain to us what the protocol is? Where do you park and when do you return? How do you ensure that your shelter does not get infected with the plague? If you care about animals and their stress, why didn’t you take care of them on October 20th? Or where were you when the tear gas was used, if you claim we were killing the dogs?" the activist wrote on Facebook.
Toni Vacharadze also shared a photo of an Animal Monitoring Agency employee on Facebook. "Rustaveli and Freedom Square were completely cleared of street dogs. They will dump them somewhere in Ponichala or near Zahesi, and the dogs will never find their way back to their usual spots. They will probably die. What was the need for this? Who would they bother?" he wrote.
Tamaz Elizbarashvili's dog shelter also responded to the incident on Facebook: "We categorically demand that you stop illegally arresting and mistreating dogs, immediately release them, and return them to their usual locations. We have a question: why didn’t you hold the same event during the grand rally of the opposition? Why don’t you remove the street dogs from the area then? Doesn't this illegal action confirm that Kotsis (GD supporters) hate street dogs?!"
The Animal Monitoring Agency, which operates under the Tbilisi City Hall, claims that the dogs were transferred to a municipal shelter for their safety.
"A few dogs were moved from Freedom Square to the municipal shelter. Crowds and noise can disorient and scare them, potentially leading to biting incidents. Therefore, for their own safety, they are being kept together in a completely isolated space at the shelter," the agency said. According to them, the dogs will be returned once the Georgian Dream election event concludes.
The Animal Monitoring Agency did not address the question of why homeless dogs are taken to shelters before other events.
The final meeting of the Georgian Dream election campaign is scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. at Freedom Square, with Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the ruling party, expected to attend. Preparations for the event began a day earlier, with traffic restrictions in place. Civil servants and employees from various budgetary organizations have been brought from the regions to attend the party meeting.
