27 May 2011, 18:00
Gachechiladze: there are more victims of dispersal of the meeting than officially reported
One of the leaders of the "Georgian Party" Levan Gachechiladze is sure that there were much more victims of the dispersal of the oppositionists' meeting in Tbilisi than it was officially reported.
The ex-presidential candidate made this statement during a live broadcast of "Maestro" TV-channel but he did not specify the supposed number of victims.
Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" reported that at the night of Thursday riot squad dispersed the supporters of the opposition who had been holding the meeting in Tbilisi for already five days. According to official data, two persons perished, tens got injured, hundreds were detained, Russian journalists among them, many of the detainees were beaten up. According to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, charges were brought against about 90 persons out of those detained.
"I was shouting out to them that I was a Russian journalist but the beating came to an end only after a Georgian colonel stopped his subordinates. I was picked up, shaken off, my camera was taken away and they said: "Run quickly!". But in ten meters distance they would knock me down again and start beating. They repeated their actions several times", photojournalist of "Commersant" Dmitry Lebedev who was taking photos of the action of protest wrote in this newspaper.
The TV showed policemen beating lying participants of the action. "I saw people lying right in Rustaveli avenue with my own eyes who looked rather like dead bodies. I saw a man aged 40 or 42 who was gravely wounded in his abdomen but I even had no chance to feel his pulse", Gazeta.ru quotes Gachechiladze.
Levan Gachechiladze also declared today that a new action of protest would be announced one of these days and this time it would go without any notifications, the participants would express their protest by silence. "I hope we will be unanimous in silence at least", Gachechiladze said.
In connection with the aftermath of the dispersal of the action of "People's Assembly", a non-governmental organization "Institute of Democracy" issued a special statement which runs that the fate and location of many participants of the action still remain unknown, "Novosti-Georgia" reports.
Press service of the "People's Assembly" spread an information that Maya, wife of one of the leaders of "People's Assembly" Irakly Batiashvili, had appealed to international and human rights organizations to help her find out her husband's fate.