As part of the new series “Eastern European Insights”, a part of our Berlin Policy Hub project, a first commentary on the current developments in Georgia by Paata Gaprindashvili, Director of the Georgian think tank Georgia’s Reforms Associates (GRASS), Mariam Tsitsikashvili and Gia Japaridze, Research Associates at GRASS, was published.
At the end of June, during a one-week research and networking stay in Berlin, the Georgian scientists also spent a week in Berlin and visited our institute.
In May 2018, thousands of Georgians took to the streets of Tbilisi to protest against missteps of the government shown on two occasions. In response to a drug raid by the police on popular nightclubs in Tbilisi, on 12 May 2018, members of the club community spontaneously gathered in front of the parliament, demanding the resignations of the interior minister and the prime minister. Two weeks after the massive rave protest, when the government seemed to be confident that turmoil was over, a second phase of protests erupted following a court decision that confirmed the failure of the prosecutor’s office to investigate a murder of two 16-year-old schoolchildren committed 6 months earlier. While the two waves of protests had different triggers, they were both addressing a defective rule of law in Georgia.
The full commentary is available here.
