Political Squabble at Telavi University

Police don’t investigate hooliganism of National Movement Members

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti

Despite many demands of the non-governmental organizations and much information has already been distributed by  media sources, the Telavi Department of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs has not opened a criminal  investigation over an incident that occurred on May 7 2008 at Telavi State University. Lecturers and students of the university were meeting with leaders of the United Opposition in the hall of the university. Then activists of the National Movement, the ruling party, rushed into the hall and tried to prevent the meeting from continuing. The activists scolded and cursed Levan Gachechiladze, Salome Zurabishvili, Koba Davitashvili, Fikria Chikhradze and other leaders of the United Opposition for a period of 20 minutes.

The incident started when Nukri Kantaria, member of the “Georgian Academy” was giving a speech. He requested the audience to support Fikria Chikhradze, a single mandate candidate of the united opposition camp in Telavi for the upcoming parliamentary elections that are scheduled for May 21 2008.

Suddenly, several young men rushed into the hall and started shouting.  One of them, holding state flag in his hand, started shouting: “Who allowed the opposition to hold meetings in Telavi?!” They also cursed voters too and threatened the assembled that they would inform the administration of the local election HQ of the National Movement as to who were in attendance the meeting of the opposition.  The situation became so tense that supporters of the opposition parties and ruling party started quarrelling with the intruders.

Levan Gachechiladze, the leader of the National Council of the United Opposition, tried to reduce tensions resulting from the situation; he approached the activists of the National Movement and held out a rose to them instead of the national flag.” This flag does not belong only to the National Movement, it is a flag for all of Georgia,” said Gachechiladze.

Several minutes later the incident continued in the corridor of the university. Farna Makashvili, Imeda Kevlishvili, Davit Tushishvili and other members of the ruling party continued to go about insult leaders of the opposition leaders and their supporters.

“Having failed to subdue the members of the National Movement, we called Gia Papunashvili, the head of the Election HQ of the ruling party in Telavi asked him whether he had information about the incident. He replied he was in front of the university and he had actually sent those people,” said Nika Vardoshvili, supporter of the United Opposition.

The youth from opposing parties even inflicted injuries. Gia Papunashvili arrived on the place too but he did not try to calm them down. Levan Gachechiladze and Father Mikael, priest from the Telavi Church were both trying to calm them down.

After the quarrel the leaders from the opposition made comments over the incidents. Levan Gachechiladze stated that activists from the ruling party did not let them to carry out peaceful and normal pre-election campaign.

“This incident was organized by the ruling party. People should not be degraded according to their sympathy to this or that party,” said Gachechiladze. Gachechiladze drew his attention then to the tense pre-election situation that existed in the Akhemta District. He recommended the head of the Akhmeta Police Department and district governor to stop there tactics of terrorism and the repression of voters.

Fikria Chikhradze promised the representatives of the ruling party to leave Telavi only after the “district will be set free from violence and fear.”

The incident was broadcasted on the same day by TV Companies. The lawyers assessed that it was crime and acquired the features of hooliganism that must be charged under the criminal law, and Telavi Police Department should open criminal investigation into the matter. The representatives of the NGOs also demanded to start investigation. However, reportedly, the police chose not launch criminal case at this time.