Georgia’s main opposition leader was beaten by security forces as he joined a pro-Western demonstration against the country’s new “Russia law”.
Levan Khabeishvili, who leads the United National Movement party, which is pro-Nato and pro-European Union, shared a picture of himself with a black eye, bloodied face and broken nose after a night of violent clashes between protesters and riot police in Tbilisi.
The politician alleged he had been kidnapped and beaten for opposing the ruling party’s “foreign influence” law.
He later appeared in the Georgian parliament, his face covered in bandages, to oppose the legislation, which critics say is modelled on Vladimir Putin’s oppressive regime.
“If someone thinks we won’t smile because we lose a tooth or can’t open our eyes, they are very mistaken. We will smile because Georgia will win,” Mr Khabeishvili told the chamber after being brought in in a wheelchair.
Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, Georgia’s deputy interior minister, said the opposition figure had “broken into the police cordon and resisted police to hinder their activities, receiving injuries as a result”.
Thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in recent months, draped in the white and red of their national flag and the blue and yellow of the EU, determined to keep their country out of the clutches of Moscow.
On Tuesday night, riot police fired water cannons, tear gas and launched stun grenades in a bid to quash a demonstration in the Georgian capital.
