Women protesters in Tbilisi tell about harassment by police

Women protesters were massively sexually harassed by police officers during a protest on the outskirts of Tbilisi on February 2. This is reported by the Georgian service of Radio Liberty, UNN reports.

Participants in the rally told journalists that male police officers made sexist statements and derogatory comments about them on the basis of their gender.

At the same time, almost all of the officers who were brought to the rally that day wore masks, and their uniforms did not have numbers or other identification marks.

"How much can you put in your mouth at a time?" were the words of 20-year-old student Keta Kurasbediani and her friends who decided to have a snack on the street before the rally.

"I have heard calls like 'get out of the way' before, but on February 2, they behaved in a particularly horrible way. In addition to what they said to me, I heard the same policeman say to another girl: "I'll shove the whistle up your *ass!"," says Kurasbediani.

Anano, a 38-year-old mother of two, says she has participated in many protests, but this is the first time she has encountered such an attitude from the Interior Ministry.

"I didn't say a single bad word or offensive phrase to them... They said: "Go home instead of standing here, wash the dishes". One of the masked riot police officers was shouting from the third row: "Look how many prostitutes there are," ‘There are Tinder whores,’ Anano recalls.

The police repeatedly addressed the protesters with the phrase "table whores". These facts were recorded by journalists from several media outlets.

"Are you sucking cock? Here they give you 100 GEL, fuck you for 101 GEL. I'll borrow you in all the holes. This is just a small part of the words these maniacs said to me," another participant of the action, Salomi Kamladze, wrote on her Facebook page.

Some protesters believe that this behavior of the police served to provoke the male protesters.

The Special Investigative Service, which is responsible for investigating abuses by security forces, did not comment on the allegations against police officers or the Radio Liberty story.

Radio Liberty notes that since the spring of 2024, at least 4 cases of sexual violence against women protesters by the police have been recorded, but in no case has the "system recognized the crime" or identified the perpetrators.

In Georgia, police continue to search civil society activists01.02.25, 21:13 • 31333 views

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According to Novosti Georgia, on February 2, protesters gathered near the Tbilisi Mall on the outskirts of the capital, promising to block the road. Several thousand policemen were deployed to the area in advance. When the protesters decided to hold a march, clashes broke out with the police. That day, 31 participants were administratively detained. Later, criminal cases were opened against eight of them, including opposition leader Gigi Ugulaw, for attempting to block the highway. Five participants of the rally had to be transported from the polling stations to hospitals with injuries after being harshly detained.