TBILISI (Reuters) – Two Georgian opposition leaders were ordered detained by courts in the South Caucasus country on Friday amid a crackdown on pro-European Union groups that have backed protests against the government’s freezing of EU accession talks.
Protests against the EU accession freeze were set to continue on Friday, with the ruling Georgian Dream party saying that the demonstrations represented an attempt to stage a revolution.
Nika Gvaramia, leader of the country’s largest opposition party, the Coalition for Change, was given 12 days in prison on charges of petty hooliganism and for disobeying police. His party said on Wednesday that he had been violently and unjustly detained by police.
Another opposition figure, Aleko Elisashvili of the Strong Georgia party, was placed in pre-trial detention for two months. Prosecutors charged him with assaulting a politician of the ruling Georgian Dream party, an allegation he denied.
Georgian media reported that Elisashvili had been detained late on Wednesday, and transferred to hospital from pre-trial detention, having been beaten durng his arrest. Reuters could not independently confirm that he had been beaten.
Another eight opposition activists detained in recent days were charged on Friday with offences relating to “gang violence”, which carry jail terms of up to nine years, local media said.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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