Thousands of protesters tried to invest parliament Thursday in Tbilisi, furious that a Russian legislator addresses the Georgian assembly from the seat of the president at an international meeting, noted a journalist AFP.
Repulsed after forcing a dam
Nearly 10,000 people, demanding the resignation of the Georgian parliament speaker, managed to enter the building's courtyard after forcing a riot police barrage, the source said. The police then turned them back, only a few of them trying to enter the building.
Tens of thousands of people had previously gathered in the center of the Georgian capital to demand the resignation of Assembly Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze after a Russian parliamentarian had spoken from his own seat in the chamber tribune .
"Russia is an occupier", protesters say
Russian Communist MP Sergey Gavrilov was speaking in the Georgian Parliament at an annual meeting of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy, a forum for parliamentarians from predominantly Orthodox Christian countries. The presence of Russian parliamentarians sparked strong protests in the former Soviet republic of the Caucasus, marked by Russian military intervention and a brief war in 2008. It confirmed the loss of control of its two pro-Russian separatist regions. Abkhazia and South Ossetia, bordering Russian territory and on which remained Russian troops.
A group of Georgian opposition MPs have asked that the Russian delegation leave the Tbilisi Parliament. Many protesters wore flags of Georgia and the European Union, as well as banners carrying the slogan "Russia is an occupier".