TBILISI. April 16 (Interfax-AVN) - A Georgian human rights association said on Thursday that it had recorded 80 instances of human rights offenses against participants in current opposition rallies in Tbilisi since April 9, the day the rallies began.
The alleged offenses had included 30 instances where obstacles were put up to motor vehicles, two instances of intimidation, 11 instances of people being beaten up, two instances of abduction, three instances of damage to motor vehicles, and three instances of arrest by police, activists from the Public Defender rights coalition told a news conference.
Moreover, they said, one person had gone missing, another had been wounded, one car had been stolen, there had been six assaults by plain-clothed people and 10 electricity outages. Television broadcasts had been cut off on one occasion, there had been two instances of lawyers being arrested, 11 instances of people being run over by motor vehicles, one attempt to prevent an opposition action, one court trial involving offenses, and one assault by people in city service uniform.
The activists said the largest proportion of the alleged offenses was recorded on April 9 and 10.
They said detectives had begun preliminary investigations into them.
Public Defender member Nana Kakabadze said expensive foreign-made cars would come near rally sites and people inside them would abduct and beat up rally participants.
"Such cars bear official license plates. It is an alarming fact that neither the Interior Ministry nor other specialized authorities can identify them. In other words, what we see are terrorist attacks on the public, and the authorities deny any responsibility for them," she said.