BRATISLAVA, Jun 20 (IPS) – Having attended a whole lot of anti-government protests within the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, Gvantsa Kalandadze isn’t any stranger to police intimidation and violence.
Police brutality has change into frequent on the every day protests which have taken place within the metropolis because the finish of final yr, when the autocratic authorities of the Georgian Dream social gathering mentioned it was stopping the nation’s means of integration into the EU.
Kalandadze has seen others fall sufferer to police brutality and skilled it on a couple of event herself—quickly after leaving a protest in December final yr, she was pushed to the bottom and kicked viciously by a gaggle of officers for questioning the arrest of a person on the street, and through one other gathering just a few weeks later, she was knocked out when officers pushed her and different protestors right into a ditch.
However when the protests started, police violence in opposition to protesters appeared indiscriminate; analysis by rights group Amnesty Worldwide suggests that ladies protesters at the moment are being focused particularly and are dealing with escalating violence and gender-based reprisals.
Kalandadze says she is just not shocked by the information.
“It’s true. The police are aggressive and so they harass girls each verbally, utilizing demeaning phrases equivalent to ‘slut,’ ‘daughter of a whore,’ and others, and threaten us with rape and assault,” she says.
Amnesty’s analysis particulars the police’s strategies to focus on girls, which includes growing use of gender-based violence together with sexist insults, threats of sexual violence and illegal and degrading strip searches in opposition to girls concerned in protests.
“We have now spoken to folks personally about what they skilled by the hands of the police, equivalent to being pressured to bear strip-searches and threats of rape throughout detention,” Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty Worldwide’s Deputy Director for Jap Europe and Central Asia, informed IPS.
The group’s analysis additionally highlights particular person circumstances of this abuse, together with circumstances of girls being violently restrained by officers, pressured to strip bare, denied entry to medical remedy, threatened with rape, and subjected to sexual insults.
Amnesty says these abuses not solely violate Georgian regulation, which prohibits full undressing throughout searches, but in addition worldwide human rights regulation and requirements aimed toward safeguarding human dignity and defending folks from gender-based violence.
“Forcing somebody to utterly strip bare is in opposition to each worldwide and Georgian regulation, but regardless of this, the police are forcing protesters to do that. It’s clearly a deliberate police coverage, regardless of it being in opposition to the regulation,” mentioned Krivosheev.
Whereas Amnesty says it has spoken to quite a few girls about such abuse, Krivosheev mentioned, “the quantity is excess of we have now been capable of doc just because many victims are scared to talk out about what occurred to them.”
Feminine protesters who spoke to IPS confirmed that police harassment of girls at protests was widespread, but in addition that it was typically used to impress a selected response, and never at all times simply from girls.
“The factor is that ladies are by no means violent at protests; they’d by no means assault police, and the police are insulting us—often with sexual slurs like saying we’re all sluts, bitches, whores, and insults about oral and anal intercourse—to attempt to provoke us into doing one thing that might get us arrested or power the boys round us to attempt to shield us and do one thing that can get these males arrested,” Vera*, who has attended scores of protests in Tbilisi, informed IPS.
“I do know a number of girls who have been bodily pushed, dragged, or detained. Some have been insulted with misogynistic language. A couple of have been groped throughout arrests—and that isn’t remoted… many people know somebody personally who’s skilled this abuse,” Tamar*, a civil rights campaigner from Tbilisi who has attended scores of protests, informed IPS.
She added that police have been even cooperating with, or at the very least tolerating, criminals abusing girls protesters.
“The police have used violence—tear fuel, water cannons, rubber bullets, and bodily power—however that’s solely a part of the story. What’s much more disturbing is the presence of organized felony gangs. These teams function with impunity, clearly coordinated, but the police don’t intervene. They particularly goal girls activists—chasing them, splashing inexperienced substances on their faces, shouting threats, and making an attempt to scare them off the streets.
“I used to be personally hit within the head with a stone by certainly one of these thugs. After I requested a police officer for assist, he sarcastically informed me to ask my ‘fellow democratic fighters’ who did it, as if it had come from among the many folks protesting. There’s zero accountability when the violence comes from these orchestrated to appear like random residents. It’s a deliberate tactic to terrorize protesters, particularly girls, whereas sustaining official deniability,” she mentioned.
Many feminine protesters consider the explanations behind the concentrating on of girls are rooted in not simply the position girls are enjoying within the present protests but in addition the “misogynist tendencies” of many officers.
“There may be additionally a tradition of poisonous masculinity that goes hand in hand with the conservative a part of society—the police are offended that ladies are taking the initiative —feminine participation within the present protests is loads bigger than ever earlier than—and that causes their aggression. The police see (or, at the very least, noticed initially) girls at protests as ‘inferior’ in comparison with males and assume they are going to be simpler to interrupt morally and simpler to overpower bodily.
“One other issue is the sexual deviations of people within the police power—once they really feel energy over the ladies after detaining them, their perversion takes over,” Vera defined.
Others put it right down to how police understand girls as a severe menace to their authority.
“I believe that the true cause the police are concentrating on girls is that ladies are really fearless in these protests. They’re very resilient and protracted and at all times on the frontlines. They’ve really bodily saved lots of males from the arms of violent police. I actually consider that the police really feel threatened by them,” Paata Sabelashvili, a rights campaigner in Tbilisi who has taken half in protests, informed IPS.
He added, although, that “in gentle of the misogyny and sexism amongst law enforcement officials, that is, sadly, not surprising, and I concern it can solely worsen sooner or later.”
Whereas Amnesty has referred to as on Georgian authorities to instantly finish all types of gender-based reprisals and all illegal use of power by regulation enforcement, examine each allegation of abuse in the course of the protests, and guarantee accountability in any respect ranges, neither the group itself nor protesters who spoke to IPS, consider that’s more likely to occur quickly.
“There may be little hope underneath the present authorities for accountability and efficient investigation ,” mentioned Krivosheev.
Native media have reported that investigations into complaints made by girls concerning the violence and threats they’ve confronted from police at protests have largely gone nowhere, as have investigations by the Particular Investigation Service, which is tasked with independently investigating crimes dedicated by police, regardless of a whole lot of reviews of police violence in 2024 alone.
The federal government has not commented on claims of girls protesters being focused by police, however previously it has justified police motion at protests as being a response to violence from protesters and has claimed, with out proof, that the protests are being funded from overseas.
However whereas girls protesters are affected by abuse and harassment by police, the ways seem like galvanizing feminine participation in protests.
“These gender-based reprisals could have been aimed toward scaring girls into giving up, however that has not been the case. Ladies have continued protesting, and if something, much more intensively. Many ladies proceed to talk up about how the police are treating them,” mentioned Krivosheev.
Kalandadze says that regardless of her experiences, she won’t cease attending protests.
“The day the federal government introduced it will droop Georgia’s EU integration, I made a decision to affix the road protests, and the violent suppression started the identical evening. Since then, I’ve attended each protest the place protesters have been at risk—each gathering the place the police particular forces have been referred to as in. Even in the present day, I participate in each protest the place police forces are mobilized,” she says.
Vera identified that though the scale of avenue protests in Tbilisi has grown smaller, they proceed every day.
“The truth that there’s some type of protest within the capital every single day is discomfiting for the federal government and in addition serves to make sure that the regime is just not legitimized within the eyes of the nation’s former western companions. There are many feminine activists and the leaders of the protest marches are at all times girls. We have now proven a lot resilience. We consider in one another. This nation is ours,” she mentioned.
Tamar was much more defiant.
“When girls lead, particularly in a patriarchal society, it destabilizes the entire narrative. It’s not nearly political dissent; it’s about cultural management. Sure, I concern issues could worsen earlier than they get higher. However we aren’t taking a step again,” she mentioned.
*Names have been modified for his or her security.
IPS UN Bureau Report
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Authentic supply: Inter Press Service
