
A recent report issued by a leading watchdog group accuses Georgia’s ruling party of plunging the country into a human rights crisis. That assessment, contained in Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2025, may provide a boost for anti-government protesters seeking to hold a new parliamentary election that they hope will push the ruling Georgian Dream party from power.
Human Rights Watch highlights a range of factors contributing to Georgia’s “significant steps backward on human rights in 2024,” including controversial laws on regulating “foreign influence” in the country’s NGO sector and a discriminatory anti-LGBT law. The government additionally acted to restrict freedom of assembly.
“The government is relentlessly taking the country into a repressive era that is uncharted for Georgia but all too familiar in authoritarian states,” Hugh Williamson, Human Rights Watch’s director for Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement. “But it is never too late for it to reverse course, drop repressive laws, allow freedom of assembly, stop violence against protesters, and hold police accountable.”
The report lambastes the use of “excessive force” by police in response to mass protests that have been a daily occurrence in cities across the country since the government shelved EU accession efforts on November 28.
“On multiple occasions, during especially large demonstrations in front of the parliament building, police used tear gas, water cannons, and pepper spray to disperse mainly nonviolent protesters,” the HRW report states. “Over a dozen journalists and media representatives sustained injuries because of police use of force during the protests.”
The report suggests that authorities manipulated the justice system in an attempt to quash protests, noting that “police arrested hundreds on misdemeanor charges, and courts imposed fines on many after perfunctory trials.”
HRW also documents numerous instances of suspected Georgian Dream-backed violence and intimidation against individual government opponents. Some incidents featured beatings that resulted in the hospitalization of victims. No individuals have been arrested in connection with such incidents.
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