While thousands of Iranians take to the streets daily demanding the downfall of the Islamic Republic, people in the small European country of Georgia, along Russia’s southern border, have been protesting at various levels of intensity for over a year following disputed parliamentary elections in 2024.

Everyday Georgians who are still braving freezing temperatures and allegations of violence by the authorities are looking at their peers fighting for democracy in Iran and seeing their own struggle playing out against a corrupt and unpopular regime.

“When you walk through the demonstrations every day in Tbilisi, all people talk about is Iran. The heated debate over it shows how much it matters and how optimism is out on the streets due to developments despite controversies,” Tinatin Khidasheli, former defense minister of Georgia, told Fox News Digital.

IRAN’S ETHNIC MINORITIES COULD HOLD KEY TO REGIME’S FATE AS PROTESTS CONTINUE

“Developments in Iran resonate in a very human way: if people can challenge a far more despotic and violent regime, it reinforces the belief that resistance in Georgia is not futile,” Khidasheli added.

Mass protests began shortly after the pro-Russia Georgian Dream party claimed victory in elections in October 2024 and halted Georgia’s efforts to join the European Union.

Georgians have long desired to move closer to the West and join the European Union, with opinion polls showing overwhelming support for joining the bloc. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze halted Tbilisi’s accession path to join the EU shortly after taking power, sparking anger from many.

Tbilisi’s main Rustaveli Avenue has been crowded with protesters chanting and blocking traffic, outraged at the ruling party pulling Georgia away from Europe and closer to a Russian-oriented foreign policy.

FRANCE CONDEMNS IRAN PROTEST CRACKDOWN, WEIGHS SATELLITE INTERNET AID AMID BLACKOUT

Erekle Koplatadze, a 33-year-old from Tbilisi, has been participating in protests almost daily since November 2024. Koplatadze, who was detained for six days for allegedly blocking a road while protesting in November 2025, told Fox News Digital that there has been a feeling of solidarity with the protests in Iran since people rose up in December against economic mismanagement and regime corruption. 

“You will see many Lion and Sun flags (Iran’s national flag until the 1979 Islamic Revolution) in front of Georgia’s Parliament. And there have been protests in front of the Iranian Embassy in Tbilisi,” Koplatadze said.

Koplatadze said the news coming out of Iran and the regime’s brutal violence employed against innocent people has shaken many Georgians in the crowd and a shared sense of empathy has emerged.

“I don’t remember such a big protest in Tbilisi in support of a foreign nation except for Ukraine,” he said.

Ana Riaboshenko, co-founder of the “Initiative Culture For Democracy” who attends protests on a regular basis, told Fox News Digital that developments in Iran directly affect Georgia, as well as all the countries in the region. 

“Its transformation from a terrorist state to a democratic government will significantly change the situation and indeed contribute substantially to the global power balance and economy.  A particularly positive outcome is expected with the collapse of the Russian-Iranian partnership.”

G7 THREATENS IRAN WITH NEW SANCTIONS OVER NATIONWIDE PROTEST CRACKDOWN KILLING THOUSANDS

Riaboshenko pointed out that Russian-backed Georgian Dream representatives positioned themselves as partners with Tehran and bilateral relations and cooperation have increased since the rigged elections of 2024.

Civic IDEA, a Georgian NGO, issued a report in July 2025 detailing how Iranian businessmen and companies use Georgia as a strategic transit point to evade international sanctions and channel funds back to Iran. 

Nearly 13,000 Iranian companies are registered in Georgia, according to the Civic IDEA report.

Marika Mikiashvili, Foreign Secretary of party Droa, part of the largest democratic alliance in Georgia, spoke to Fox News Digital and said while Georgians are in awe and very inspired by the bravery of Iranians, their struggle is a warning sign as much as it is profoundly inspiring.

“Many protesters see Iran as a cautionary tale of what happens when a consolidating dictatorship isn’t defeated soon enough,” Mikiashvili warned.

There have also been no statements of support for the pro-democracy protests from the Georgian Dream government or condemnation of security force human rights violations against innocent people.

As the Georgian Dream government entrenched itself in power, it implemented harsh anti-demonstration laws to crack down on dissent and used disproportionate force and other brutal tactics to squash the unrest.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Human Rights Watch documented numerous laws that interfered with Georgians’ rights to peacefully assemble, including steep fines for protest-related violations and abusive police tactics as thousands of people have been arbitrarily detained.

Since Georgian Dream’s election, 600 people have been arbitrarily detained, 300 protesters were tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment, 1,000 citizens received fines for political opinions, and 400 journalists have been arrested, beaten, and harassed, according to Transparency International Georgia, a non-governmental organization with the goal of combating corruption in Georgia.

Critics, including human rights workers and opposition groups, say the election is neither free nor fair.

Myanmar’s military-backed political party has extended its lead after the second round of voting, according to official figures from the country’s election body, and the country now heads into the final phase of its three-stage general election amid widespread conflict.

The latest data published on Friday indicates that the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is on track to win 182 seats from the combined first and second phases of voting, more than half of the seats in the country’s 330-member lower house.

According to figures reported by state broadcaster MRTV, citing the Union Election Commission, the USDP won a whopping 86 of 100 seats up for grabs in the second phase of voting held on Sunday. The third and final round of voting is scheduled for January 25.

Critics, including human rights and opposition groups, say the polls are neither free nor fair and are an effort by the military to legitimise its rule after seizing power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

The military takeover triggered widespread opposition that has grown into a civil war.

The election is being held in three phases due to armed conflicts in the country.

The first and second rounds took place in 202 of the country’s total 330 townships on December 28 and January 11. The final round will take place in more townships, but 65 others are not participating because of fighting in those areas.

Final results for all seats in both national and regional legislatures are expected to be announced by late January.

Major-General Zaw Min Tun, the military’s spokesperson, said last weekend that the two houses of parliament will be convened in March, with a new government taking up its duties in April.

During the first two rounds of voting, armed groups opposing the army carried out attacks against polling stations and government buildings in many townships, the military government said.

The election also comes as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently holding hearings in a case brought by The Gambia, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its Rohingya community.

While more than 4,800 candidates from 57 political parties are competing for seats in national and regional legislatures, only six parties are contesting seats nationwide.

One of them, the People’s Pioneer Party, is facing a pending legal case that could result in its dissolution after its chairwoman, Thet Thet Khine, and another senior party member were scrutinised by authorities for holding a meeting with representatives of a foreign embassy in Yangon, the country’s largest city, without prior approval from the election commission.

A new Election Protection Law imposes harsh penalties for most public criticism of the polls, with the authorities charging more than 330 people recently for leafleting or online activity.

China quietly mobilized thousands of fishing boats twice in recent weeks to form massive floating barriers of at least 200 miles long, showing a new level of coordination that could give Beijing more ways to impose control in contested seas.

The two recent operations unfolded largely unnoticed. An analysis of ship-tracking data by The New York Times reveals the scale and complexity of the maneuvers for the first time.

Last week, about 1,400 Chinese vessels abruptly dropped their usual fishing activities or sailed out of their home ports and congregated in the East China Sea. By Jan. 11, they had assembled into a rectangle stretching more than 200 miles. The formation was so dense that some approaching cargo ships appeared to skirt around them or had to zigzag through, ship-tracking data showed.

Maritime and military experts said the maneuvers suggested that China was strengthening its maritime militia, which is made up of civilian fishing boats trained to join in military operations. They said the maneuvers show that Beijing can rapidly muster large numbers of the boats in disputed seas.

The Jan. 11 maneuver followed a similar operation last month, when about 2,000 Chinese fishing boats assembled in two long, parallel formations on Christmas Day in the East China Sea. Each stretched 290 miles long, about the distance from New York City to Buffalo, forming a reverse L shape, ship-position data indicates. The two gatherings, weeks apart in the same waters, suggested a coordinated effort, analysts said.

The unusual formations were spotted by Jason Wang, the chief operating officer of ingeniSPACE, a company that analyzes data, and were independently confirmed by The Times using ship-location data provided by Starboard Maritime Intelligence.

“I was thinking to myself, ‘This is not right’,” he said, describing his response when he spotted the fishing boats on Christmas Day. “I mean I’ve seen like a couple hundred — let’s say high hundreds,” he said, referring to Chinese boats he has previously tracked, “but nothing of this scale or of this distinctive formation.”

In a conflict or crisis, for instance over Taiwan, China could mobilize tens of thousands of civilian ships, including fishing boats, to clog sea lanes and complicate military and supply operations of its opponents.

Chinese fishing boats would be too small to effectively enforce a blockade. But they could possibly obstruct movement by American warships, said Lonnie Henley, a former U.S. intelligence officer who has studied China’s maritime militia.

The masses of the smaller boats could also act “as missile and torpedo decoys, overwhelming radars or drone sensors with too many targets,” said Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. naval officer now at the Center for a New American Security.

Analysts tracking the ships were struck by the scale of the maneuvers, even given China’s record of mobilizing civilian boats, which has involved anchoring boats for weeks on contested reefs, for instance, to project Beijing’s claims in territorial disputes.

“The sight of that many vessels operating in concert is staggering,” said Mark Douglas, an analyst at Starboard, a company with offices in New Zealand and the United States. Mr. Douglas said that he and his colleagues had “never seen a formation of this size and discipline before.”

“The level of coordination to get that many vessels into a formation like this is significant,” he said.

The assembled boats held relatively steady positions, rather than sailing in patterns typical of fishing, such as paths that loop or go back and forth, analysts said. The ship-location data draws on navigation signals broadcast by the vessels.

The operations appeared to mark a bold step in China’s efforts to train fishing boats to gather en masse, in order to impede or monitor other countries’ ships, or to help Beijing assert its territorial claims by establishing a perimeter, said Mr. Wang of ingeniSPACE.

“They’re scaling up, and that scaling indicates their ability to do better command and control of civilian ships,” he said.

The Chinese government has not said anything publicly about the fishing boats’ activities. The ship-signals data appeared to be reliable and not “spoofed” — that is, manipulated to create false impressions of the boats’ locations — Mr. Wang and Mr. Douglas both said.

Researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, when approached by The Times with these findings, confirmed that they had observed the same packs of boats with their own ship-location analysis.

“They are almost certainly not fishing, and I can’t think of any explanation that isn’t state-directed,” Gregory Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at C.S.I.S., wrote in emailed comments.

The fishing boats assembled in the East China Sea, near major shipping lanes that branch out from Shanghai, among the world’s busiest ports. Cargo ships crisscross the sea daily, including ones carrying Chinese exports to the United States.

These are maritime arteries that China would seek to control in a clash with the United States or its Asian allies, including in a possible crisis over Taiwan, the island-democracy that Beijing claims as its territory.

“My best guess is this was an exercise to see how the civilians would do if told to muster at scale in a future contingency, perhaps in support of quarantine, blockade, or other pressure tactics against Taiwan,” Mr. Poling wrote. A “quarantine” means a sea operation to seal off an area that is meant to fall short of an act of war.

The boat maneuvers in January took place shortly after Beijing held two days of military exercises around Taiwan, including practicing naval maneuvers to blockade the island. Beijing is also in a bitter dispute with Japan over its support for Taiwan.

The fishing boat operations could have been held to signal “opposition to Japan” or practice for possible confrontations with Japan or Taiwan, said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College who studies China’s maritime activities. He noted that he spoke for himself, not for his college or the navy.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense and coast guard both declined to comment on the Chinese fishing boats, citing the need to protect their information-gathering capabilities.

Some of the fishing boats had taken part in previous maritime militia activities or belonged to fishing fleets known to be involved in militia activities, based on a scan of Chinese state media reports. China does not publish the names of most vessels in its maritime militia, making it difficult to identify the status of the boats involved.

But the tight coordination of the boats showed it was probably “an at-sea mobilization and exercise of maritime militia forces,” Professor Erickson said.

China has in recent years used maritime militia fishing boats in dozens or even hundreds to support its navy, sometimes by swarming, maneuvering dangerously close, and physically bumping other boats in disputes with other countries.

The recent massing of boats appeared to show that maritime militia units are becoming more organized and better equipped with navigation and communications technology.

“It does mark an improvement in their ability to marshal and control a large number of militia vessels,” said Mr. Henley, the former U.S. intelligence officer, who is now a non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. “That’s one of the main challenges to making the maritime militia a useful tool for either combat support or sovereignty protection.”

Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul and Javier C. Hernández and Kiuko Notoya contributed reporting from Tokyo.

Data source: Starboard Maritime Intelligence.

About the data: We analyzed automatic identification systems (AIS) data of ships that broadcast positions near the formation in the 24-hour periods of Dec. 25, 2025 and Jan. 11, 2026 that either follow China’s fishing ship naming convention or are registered as China-flagged fishing vessels. Ships do not always transmit information and may transmit incorrect information. The positions shown in maps are last known positions at the specific times.