Georgia
Police in Georgia turn increasingly brutal as mass protests over ending EU talks enter second week
TBILISI, Georgia — Mass protests in Georgia fueled by the governing party’s decision to suspend negotiations on joining the European Union entered a second week on Thursday, with police cracking down on the protesters with increasing force in an attempt to curb the demonstrations.
On Wednesday, an opposition leader was dragged into a police car and arrested, his party said. Several other activists have been arrested and scores of demonstrators and some journalists have been brutally beaten.
Georgian journalist Guram Rogava was doing a live broadcast from a protest when a riot policeman rushed up to him and hit him in the head on Friday. Rogava suffered fractured facial bones in the assault.
After being discharged from the hospital Monday with an immobilized neck and a bandaged head, he said he was lucky to be able to move his hands and talk.
“It was clear that they were deliberately attacking media representatives,” he told The Associated Press. “The government is in such a state that, for some reason, its survival instinct dictates the need to intimidate the media.”
The ruling Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the disputed Oct. 26 election, a vote widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s EU aspirations. The opposition and the pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with neighboring Russia’s help and have boycotted parliament sessions.
Opposition protests gained new momentum after the Georgian Dream’s decision last Thursday to put the EU accession talks on hold.
Riot police have used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the rallies and beat scores of protesters, who threw fireworks at police officers and built barricades on the Georgian capital’s central boulevard.
On Wednesday, the Coalition for Change opposition party said that police raided its offices and detained its leader, Nika Gvaramia. It shared a video showing several officers dragging Gvaramia into a car.
Activists have also been arrested in police raids on offices of several opposition parties and non-government organizations, and one of them, Aleko Elisashvili, was in hospital for injuries he suffered during the detention.
More than 300 protesters have been detained and over 100 people have been treated for injuries. One of the protesters, 22-year-old Aleksi Tirqia was placed in an induced coma after he was allegedly hit with a tear gas capsule.
The crackdown has drawn a strong condemnation from the United States and EU officials. Speaking Thursday at a ministerial conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced what he described as a brutal “repression of those calling for their country to stay on the path to closer ties with Europe.”
Lazare Maghlakelidze, a 20-year-old student who joined the protests, said policemen who detained him at the protest early on Monday threatened to rape him and then hit him over the head several times.
“They started beating me up immediately as soon as they made sure that there were no cameras around,” Maghlakelidze said. Despite a head injury and a broken nose, he says he’s even more determined to keep protesting.
Georgian Special Investigation Service, a government agency that investigates alleged abuse of power, said it was investigating violence against protesters and interference with the journalists’ professional work. It said that more than 300 people, including journalists and protesters, have reported violations of their rights during the protests.
Tamar Oniani, a human rights lawyer, said such investigations in the past never gave visible result and no officer has faced charges of at least suspension from duty. He argued that police brutality appeared to have the authorities’ blessing.
“It was systemic, widespread violence against demonstrators, just because of the fact that they were at the demonstration and they were protesting,” Oniani said.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the Georgian Dream party said the raids of the opposition groups’ offices targeted those who encouraged violence during protests in an attempt to topple his government.
“I wouldn’t call this repression; it is more of a preventive measure than repression,” Kobakhidze said.
President Zourabichvili refused to recognize the official election results and contested them before the Constitutional Court, which rejected her appeal earlier this week.
Zourabichvili, who plays a largely ceremonial role, has urged the country’s Western partners to respond to police brutality against protesters and raids of opposition groups by putting “strong pressure on a ruling party that is driving the country over the cliff!”
“Do not be late!” she wrote on the social platform X.
The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on condition that the country meets the bloc’s recommendations, but put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June after the passage of a “foreign influence” law that was widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.
The law requires organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.
Georgia
Two freshman Georgia football players arrested on shoplifting charges
Georgia offensive lineman Dontrell Glover and running back Bo Walker were arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart on Friday, less than a week after the Bulldogs won the SEC Championship.
According to the Athens Banner-Herald, the freshmen were booked into Clarke County jail in Athens on two counts of misdemeanor shoplifting. Glover and Walker were arrested Friday evening and released on $1,526 bond before 8 p.m.
“We were informed of the charges and are currently in the process of gathering additional information,” Georgia spokesman Steve Drummond said in a statement. “This is a pending legal matter and we will not have further comment at this time.”
Walker played six games this season and rushed for 100 yards and three touchdowns. Glover started 11 games in 2025 and was named to the All-SEC freshman team.
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Last month, offensive lineman Nyier Daniels was dismissed from the team by head coach Kirby Smart after he was arrested on more than a dozen criminal charges after he allegedly tried to flee from police north of Athens.
The Bulldogs beat Alabama last Saturday in the SEC title game and earned a place in the College Football Playoff. They will play again on Jan. 1 against the winner of Ole Miss-Tulane in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
Georgia
DOJ files suit to obtain 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia
The Justice Department sued Fulton County, Georgia, this week in an effort to obtain more than five-year-old ballots tied to the 2020 presidential election which President Donald Trump lost.
The eight-page complaint filed in federal court in Atlanta on Thursday, names Fulton County Clerk of Courts Che Alexander as a defendant, alleging that the clerk violated the Civil Rights Act by failing to produce records tied to the 2020 presidential election as requested by state and federal officials.
The lawsuit asks that the court demand that the records be produced within five days of a court order.
According to the lawsuit, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections last month refused to comply with an Oct. 6 subpoena, from the state’s election board, for election records, including used and void ballots, stubs, and signature envelopes from the 2020 presidential election, saying in a Nov. 14 letter that the records were “under seal” in accord with state law.
The lawsuit states that the board later failed to respond to a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi on Oct. 30, demanding the records which she said were needed to review the state’s compliance with federal election laws and meet state transparency efforts.
Alexander and the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday night.
Alexander had previously said in an Oct. 21 letter to the state election board that “the records sought are under seal and may not be produced absent a Court Order,” according to the lawsuit.
Trump was indicted on felony charges in Fulton County in August 2023 along with 18 other co-defendants in connection with efforts to overturn his election loss.
Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that were dropped last month by a prosecutor who took the reins of the case following Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ disqualification from prosecuting Trump in the matter.
Georgia has long been a sore spot for Trump after a narrow loss in 2020 that he has spent years disputing.
After a manual recount of election results in Georgia that reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state in 2020, Trump, who was then seeking a second term, had also called then-Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and implored him to “find” the votes needed to defeat Biden in the 2020 election. Since then he has continued to falsely claim he won the state.
The Fulton County lawsuit from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division comes as it announced on Friday that it had filed federal lawsuits against four states — Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada — alleging that the states had violated the Constitution by failing to produce statewide voter registration lists upon request.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement Friday that states “have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution.”
“At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will,” Dhillon said.
Georgia
Georgia’s Utility Regulator Rushes Deal for Georgia Power Before Public Hearing – CleanTechnica
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ATLANTA, Georgia — An hour before hearing testimony from the public and advocacy groups, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) posted a settlement agreement approving Georgia Power’s plan to build the most expensive gas plants in the country, leaving Georgians to foot the bill.
The settlement, which the PSC is expected to vote on during its Dec. 19 meeting, approves Georgia Power’s “Requests for Proposals,” or RFP, despite clear warnings from the Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and PSC’s own staff that Georgia Power’s plan hinges on a data center bubble. The utility’s proposal is expected to cost at least $15 billion in capital costs, though the total costs have yet to be publicly disclosed. The proposed settlement would dramatically increase Georgian’s energy bills for years to come for data centers that might not even be built. Several counties in Georgia have already passed moratoriums on data centers, awaiting more insight into their potential impact on local communities.
“This proposed settlement is the largest single investment in electric infrastructure in the state’s history. It calls for building the most expensive gas plants in the country and will result in higher prices for consumers and more pollution in our communities. It will cause temperatures to go up, more frequent and more powerful storms, and deadlier floods and heatwaves,” said Dekalb County resident Lisa Coronado during the Dec. 10 hearing. “But Georgia Power doesn’t care about any of that. When the temperatures go up, Georgia Power makes more money because Georgians run their air conditioning more often. When climate-change fueled storms wreck our infrastructure, Georgia Power passes repair costs onto us.”
The settlement includes promises of “downward pressure” for ratepayers’ bills, but Georgia Power’s claim that typical ratepayers will eventually see a reduction of $8.50 per month is short-sighted. First, Georgia Power has made similar promises in the past and continued to raise rates. Second, the proposed rate decrease would only cover three years, whereas ratepayers will have to pay for gas plants for 45 years.
In response, the Sierra Club released the following statement:
“The PSC’s own expert staff said Georgia building gas plants was not in the best interest of ratepayers,” said Adrien Webber, Sierra Club Georgia Chapter Director. “At a time when the PSC should be fighting for affordability for Georgians, they instead push through a plan that will continue to squeeze Georgia families already struggling to make ends meet. As we consider our next steps, it’s clear that the people of Georgia demand change from our PSC and the Sierra Club will continue to fight to make that change happen.
“‘Georgia Power’s agreement is still based on the idea that data center projects are coming, which is not guaranteed,” Webber continued. “The PSC’s own staff saw Georgia Power’s plan as overbuilding for projects that may or may not appear, threatening to leave the cost for ratepayers to pick up. It’s infuriating that Georgia Power and the PSC refuse to even take public comment or insight from advocates into consideration before coming to this agreement. Filing this agreement just an hour before the second round of hearings shows that the PSC refuses to be held accountable to the people of Georgia.”
About the Sierra Club: The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.
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