Three Persons Detained During June 20 Rally in Tbilisi Released

The Tbilisi City Court has approved a plea bargain between the Prosecutor’s Office and the persons, detained during the June 20 protest in 2019 (also known as Gavrilov's Night) in Tbilisi, and released all three defendants from the courtroom.

The City Court found Kakhaber Kupreishvili, Tsotne Soselia, and Zurab Budaghashvili guilty for violence by a group during the June 20 protest rally, imposing 3 years of the conditional sentence and a GEL 2 000 fine each. 

Protests on Rustaveli Avenue started on June 20 in reaction to the visit of three Russian MPs to Georgia within the framework of a session of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy held at the Parliament building, mostly due to the fact that Russian MP Sergei Gavrilov sat in the parliamentary Speaker’s chair, speaking in Russian, which many Georgians saw as the unwelcome reminder of the Russian occupation of the country's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia). 

The protest turned into clashes with police after protesters tried to enter the parliament building. 

The so-called Gavrilov Night protest was dispersed by riot police with the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon. 240 individuals, including 32 journalists and 80 law enforcers, were injured during a clash on Rustaveli Avenue on June 20-21. 

By Ana Dumbadze