Georgian parliamentarians clash following the suppression of demonstrators against foreign agents

Fights between members of the ruling party and opposition MPs in the parliament on May 1 interrupted a debate to adopt Georgia’s contentious foreign agents bill in its second reading, according to JAM News.

Social media footage of the argument revealed deputies yelling and striking each other. The assembly must still adopt the bill by at least one reading after it was passed on its first reading.

During the voting on the bill’s first reading, the discussion had already erupted into physical altercations. Aleko Elisashvili, a legislator from the Georgian opposition, approached the platform and struck Mamuka Mdinaradze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party’s parliamentary faction, on the head while he was attempting to make a case for the bill’s passage.

Elisashvili hit Mdinaradze and yelled, “Your Russian mother is a motherf***er,” before being hauled away by security, according to RFE/RL.

After a brief respite, Mdinaradze led the parliamentary legal affairs committee session, seemingly undisturbed by the attack.

Only TV crews are allowed inside the parliament as security measures have been tightened as the escalating crisis enters its sixteenth day.

Growing demonstrations against the enactment of the law, which was modeled after a Russian counterpart, have taken place outside the parliament building. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has suppressed civil society and silenced the opposition media by abusing his foreign agents statute.

Later today, protests outside the parliament are anticipated to attract participants from various parts of Georgia as well as Tbilisi.

Growing numbers of demonstrators, evoking protests against the same bill that Georgian Dream attempted to introduce last year, have shook Tbilisi. But eventually, the administration was compelled to back down from the measure due to the size of the protests.

The oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorable head of Georgian Dream, escalated tensions two days ago when he delivered his “Party of War” speech at a pro-government rally. He blamed foreign interference from the West for Georgia’s problems over the past ten years and threatened to use the foreign agents’ law to crack down on United National Movement (UNM), the main opposition party led by Mikheil Saakashvili and Georgian Dream’s main rival in the October general election.

Roughly one hundred thousand demonstrators went back to the streets to carry on with the vigil yesterday night, but riot police attacked them with rubber bullets, tear gas, and batons. On April 30, there were violent altercations between the crowd and the police in central Tbilisi. Before being taken to the hospital, one opposition leader was severely beaten and had multiple teeth knocked out. In addition, the group of people chanting the Georgian national song and waving EU flags was attacked by police with water cannons.

Today is predicted to see additional protests, and the scenario is still primed for greater violence.