TBILISI, Georgia — The speaker of Georgia’s Parliament stepped down Friday in the wake of violent clashes that left at least 240 people injured, but the move failed to assuage protesters, who returned to the streets demanding that the interior minister also step down over a brutal police response.
A night of clashes Thursday was sparked by a Russian lawmaker who sat in the speaker’s chair as a group of international lawmakers met at the Georgian Parliament in Tbilisi. It angered the opposition, which sees the current Georgian government as overly friendly to Russian interests.
The protests mark the largest outpouring of anger against the ruling Georgian Dream since it took power in 2012.
Officials said at least 240 people were injured when riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas and unleashed water cannons on protesters outside Georgia’s Parliament building during the clashes that lasted into early Friday. More than 100 people were still in the hospital, and two people lost eyes because of the rubber bullets, according to Giorgi Kordzakhiya, director of Tbilisi’s New Hospital.
Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze blamed opposition leaders for the violence, saying they hijacked a “genuine” public outpouring but then “violated the law and the Constitution.”
Speaker Irakli, who was out of the country on an official visit, handed in his resignation, but several thousand protesters returned to the Parliament building Friday, demanding that the interior minister also resign. Many wore eyepatches in solidarity with those who lost their eyes.
Anti-Russian sentiments run deep in Georgia, which made a botched attempt to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia during the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, sparking a war in 2008 with Russia that routed the Georgian military in five days of fighting. Moscow then recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia and set up military bases there.
The opposition sees the current Georgian government as overly friendly to Russian interests.