Police disperse opposition rally in Tbilisi

PanARMENIAN.Net - Police in Georgia fired rubber bullets at protesters holding an all-night demonstration against Western-backed President Mikheil Saakashvili after they attacked a car full of people on May 22. Local television in the country showed pictures of a group of anti-government protesters with sticks attacking the car on Sunday morning, smashing its windows and beating people inside.

"Police were forced to use rubber bullets to defend peaceful citizens," AFP quoted interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili as saying.

A spokeswoman for opposition leader Nino Burjanadze said the clash was provoked by the people in the car, who tried to seize an activist from the overnight protest outside the Georgian public television studios. "People in the car were trying to kidnap one of the rally organisers and the protesters attempted to defend him," Burjanadze's spokeswoman Khatuna Ivanishvili told AFP.

Several hundred people continued the protest outside the television studios after the incident, many of them carrying sticks. A second clash then erupted when angry protesters threw stones at cars which had approached the demonstration, suspecting the drivers of being undercover police officers.

Around 6,000 supporters of the National Assembly opposition alliance rallied in Tbilisi on Saturday, accusing President Saakashvili of authoritarianism and calling for him to resign.

Hundreds more rallied in the Black Sea resort of Batumi, where protests were broken up by police after activists tried to force their way into a local television station, demanding airtime. The National Assembly alleged that hundreds of its activists have been arrested over the past three days.

"The authorities are carrying out a terror campaign against opposition supporters," Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker for the Saakashvili government, told AFP.