(Tbilisi) Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Georgia on Monday in support of the former president and opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili, imprisoned and on hunger strike, shortly after the announcement of his hospitalization.
Chanting the name of Mr. Saakachvili, nearly 40,000 people joined the central square of Tbilisi, the capital of this Caucasian country, in the evening, according to AFP journalists.
“A massive and permanent protest movement begins in Georgia and will not stop until Mikheïl Saakashvili is released and early elections have not been organized,” said Nika Melia, the president of the Movement, to the crowd. United National (MNU) of the former head of state.
“We will not disperse, our protest will be relentless and peaceful,” he said again.
Protesters then marched through the city center towards the prime minister’s office, intending to block the building.
Mikheïl Saakashvili is “the victim of a political vendetta, we will not stop until he is released,” said one of them, Niko Mgeladze, a 46-year-old businessman.
Opposition-friendly Mtavari TV broadcast footage of hundreds of riot police deployed in front of government buildings.
Monday, the former president said he feared for his life and assured to have been physically abused by his guards.
PHOTO VALENTYN OGIRENKO, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Mikheil Saakashvili
They “insulted me, hit me in the neck, pulled me on the ground by the hair,” said Mr. Saakashvili in a letter to his lawyer, considering that “the purpose” of his transfer on Monday in a prison hospital was to “kill” him.
A few hours earlier, the penitentiary services had announced the transfer of Mr. Saakachvili to a hospital-prison in order to “avoid the deterioration of his state of health” after 39 days of hunger strike.
Earlier Monday, doctors who had examined Mr. Saakashvili had pointed to a “high risk of complications” and the “need for urgent treatment in a well-equipped multi-purpose clinic”.
” Sentenced to death ”
Pro-Western president from 2004 to 2013 and now considered the leader of the opposition, Mr. Saakashvili returned on 1er October in Georgia after an eight-year exile. Immediately arrested, he was imprisoned under a conviction for “abuse of power”, which he considers to be purely political.
A charismatic and ambivalent figure in Georgian politics, but also in Ukraine, Mikheïl Saakashvili has since observed a hunger strike to protest against his imprisonment.
His supporters have been demanding for weeks his release or at least his hospitalization in a civilian establishment and not a penitentiary hospital.
According to Georgian human rights envoy Nino Lomjaria, a hospital-prison does not meet the criteria set out by Georgian doctors.
“When the Georgian parliament abolished on my initiative (in 1998) the death penalty, I could not imagine that, years later, I would be sentenced to death in Georgia,” Saakashvili said on Monday in a statement. press release issued by his lawyer.
His personal doctor, Nikoloz Kipchidzé, revealed in October that the ex-president had blood problems which made his refusal to eat “particularly dangerous”.
Mr. Saakashvili’s lawyers expressed concern that his “safety will not be guaranteed in this hospital-prison where convicted criminals are employed as medical auxiliaries. ”
Political crisis
The independent Pirveli television station reported that inmates at the prison hospital had organized a “noise riot”, loudly insulting Mr. Saakashvili, who led a campaign against organized crime during his presidency.
On Saturday, supporters of Mr. Saakashvili had set up dozens of tents in front of the Roustavi prison where he was being held, promising to organize continuous vigils until he was transferred to a civilian hospital.
Known for having effectively fought corruption, but also widely criticized for having provoked Russian military intervention in 2008, Mikheïl Saakashvili left Georgia in 2013.
He returned there on 1er October, just ahead of municipal elections won by the ruling Georgian Dream Party and described as fraudulent by the opposition, in which the United National Movement (UNM) of Mr Saakashvili is the leading figure.
His imprisonment further exacerbated the political crisis in Georgia, which began with last year’s legislative elections, also narrowly won by the Georgian Dream and viewed by the opposition as falsified.
The Georgian security services assured that the former president was planning a coup from his cell, a “fairy tale” according to the MNU.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibachvili for his part recently caused a scandal by declaring that Mikheïl Saakachvili “had the right to commit suicide”.
“We call on the Georgian side to transfer Mikheil Saakashvili without delay to a civilian medical establishment,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reacted on Monday in a protest note sent to Tbilisi.