“Our Choice is Georgia” – Demonstration on The Enguri Bridge

Today, a group of young people, members of non-governmental youth organization “New Generation for United Georgia” and approximately five hundred students and youngsters held a peaceful demonstration on the Enguri Bridge (which is connecting Samegrelo region with breakaway Abkhazia).  The key requirement of demonstrators was to cease violation on ethnically Georgian population living in the territory of Abkhazia.

The demonstrators gathered in the center of Zugdidi, near the university building and young people with flags and slogans moved to the Enguri Bridge. Students with slogans “Our Choice is Georgia”, “Stop Violation”, “Cease the terror and blackmailing” were marching under the Georgian anthem and patriotic old Georgian music.

According to the head of the “New Generation for United Georgia”, Gela Toloraia, the goal of the rally is to protest elections that took place in Abkhazia. “First of all we call international and non-governmental organizations to examine the existing situation in Abkhazia, and to examine carefully the last elections. We do not recognize results of these elections” said Toloraia and distributed the special letter addressing United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia, where they ask UNOMIG officials to react on the tense situation and facts of human right violations in Abkhazia.

The letter states: “We are deeply concerned about the current situation in Abkhazia. During last two months a lot of innocent residents were kidnapped and their families had to pay large amounts of money for their freedom. Abkhazian side does not implement responsibility to defense human rights and security of local people.

The situation has become tenser since the self-governmental elections, which took place on February 11 this year. The vast majority of the population avoided participation in elections and left the territory for a while. Only 5-9% participated in elections, and even those people were blackmailed and terrorized for the participation.

Here we face the rough violation of Human Rights Declaration - as each person regardless to nationality or religion has a right of free choice.

We cal UNOMIG, OSCE and all organizations working on human rights to examine situation in Gali region and to defense security and rights of  people living there.”
 
Organizers and participants of the demonstration hope that their demands will reach addressants and the conditions of local people will be improved.

“Now we cannot speak about the probable results of our demonstration, but I hope that situation will be improved in the nearest future. We believe that Georgians and Abkhazians can live together without any problems as we did in the past,” says student Tamuna Todua.

The deputy of Gali administration based in Zugdidi, Tornike Kilanava says that this demonstration is an expression of civic position: “These are people with lots of energy and enthusiasm who managed to express their ideas and opinions about people having problems in Abkhazia. I think that such kind of actions will definitely have useful results, we already have result here, you see hundreds of youngsters are gathered here and they have one unite idea - to live in a peaceful country together with Abkhazian people.” 

Nana Sajaia, Zugdidi