▲Supporters of Alt Info broadcasted the moment that Zurab Makharadze was arrested.
Police in Georgia have made multiple arrests including of several leaders of the far-right group Alt info as they attempteded to block Saturday’s Pride festival.
The arrests came some 15 hours before Pride Fest, an event organised by Tbilisi Pride, was due to begin.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, members of the group as well as several Georgian Orthodox Priests attempted to occupy the space on Mount Mtasminda in Tbilisi where the festival was due to be held.
Alt Info has claimed that both Zurab Makharadze and Irakli Martinenko, two prominent leaders of the group, are among those arrested.
Witnesses interviewed by Alt Info also confirmed the arrest of prominent far-right campaigner Guram Palavandishvili and his son.
Guram Palavandishvili personally threatened OC Media’s director, Mariam Nikuradze, telling her that ‘there will be dead among you’ during a protest against Tbilisi Pride in 2021. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media.
Shota Martinenko, another prominent leader of Alt Info, hosted a live broadcast on their TV channel and called for supporters to come out in the streets tomorrow and directly calling for violence.
The groups also turned their ire on the government, with Alt Info’s Shota Martinenkoaddressing them by saying: ‘we know that they made deal with the West’.
‘We call for everyone to come out, let’s not leave the country in the hands of those faggots. Come to Tbilisi’, they said.
The ruling Georgian Dream party has in recent years faced growing accusations of enabling, and even encouraging far-right groups including Alt Info. The European Union referenced the impunity the group faced for organising last year’s homophobic riots in their rejection of Georgia’s EU membership application.
Alt Info has planned to meet on Saturday at 12:00 outside parliament. Pride Fest is due to kick off at 16:00.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said that he believed US President Joe Biden’s administration was ‘influenced’ by ‘certain forces’ to impose sanctions on Georgian nationals, suggesting that American institutions needed ‘de-oligharchisation’.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Kobakhidze said that the decision to impose financial sanctions on four Georgian nationals, in addition to travel restrictions on over 60 others, was ‘frivolous and very sad’.
He further suggested that the
Washington has imposed financial sanctions against security officials and the leaders of Alt Info for undermining and suppressing the freedom of peaceful assembly in Georgia. They have additionally imposed travel sanctions on 60 others, including senior government officials.
On Monday, the US Department of Treasury sanctioned the chief of the Interior Ministry’s Special Task Department, Zviad (Khareba) Kharazishvili, and his deputy Mileri Lagazauri.
They also sanctioned the extremist far-ri
The Georgian pro-Russian and far-right group, Alt Info, has announced they will run in the October parliamentary elections through the electoral list of the Alliance of Patriots — circumventing the authorities’ de-registering of their own political wing.
Zurab Makhardze, one of Alt Info’s leaders, said they had reached an agreement with the pro-Russian and ultra-conservative Alliance of Patriots party on Monday.
‘The only chance for us to participate in the elections was [to join] a party
The Georgian far-right group Alt Info has announced they have been given control of a previously unaffiliated far-right political party, a week after the authorities de-registered their own political wing.
Several thousand supporters of Alt Info gathered outside the ruling Georgian Dream party’s offices on Saturday, less than a week after their own political party, the Conservative Movement, was de-registered by Georgian authorities on a technicality.
Addressing his supporters, Alt Inf
