Among those arrested last night is Mariam Mekantsishvili, a single mother. According to her family, special forces entered Mekantsishvili’s home while she was there with her 7-year-old child and her parents.

Mekantsishvili is an active participant in the ongoing protests on Rustaveli Avenue and has attended multiple demonstrations since October 4. This includes October 14, when Elina Valtonen, Chair of the OSCE and Finland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Parliament.

At that time, Mekantsishvili noted that an interpreter — “likely provided by our illegitimate Ministry of Foreign Affairs” — introduced the OSCE Chair and her delegation as a group of tourists. Nevertheless, Mekantsishvili recognized the international delegation members, spoke with them, and informed them about the ongoing continuous protests.

One could say that the latest change adopted regarding protest demonstrations is not merely a tightening of rules, but the outright deprivation of that right. Especially over the past year, judging by the same people being arrested and how their trials unfold, we can see that this pseudo-authority does not need any real evidence… no lawful argumentation. If it decides to punish an opponent, it will punish them. Whether the law provides for a few days in jail or a harsher penalty later on is likely conditional — everything depends on political will. That means our presence here hangs by a thread. Each of us puts our freedom at enormous risk. But that risk is nothing compared with what awaits us in the future. I don’t even know what worse could come — the situation grows heavier by the day. If authoritarianism is finally consolidated, it will swallow everyone and the whole country.

That is why we must remain resolute. It cannot be otherwise — we must fight. At the same time, I think some forms and tactics of struggle — even the strategy of protest actions — need to be reconsidered and adapted, so that, given the already large number of conscience prisoners, even more activists do not fall into their hands.

“The Ministry of Internal Affairs has come up with a new mechanism of psychological pressure — they kept me at passport control in Tbilisi for over half an hour.

I asked what was happening, and then they told me: ‘Go to those two women over there.’ I went, and they said: ‘You have a fine for blocking the road.’ I said, ‘The authorities haven’t even handed it to me yet — what does this have to do with my flights?’ They replied, ‘Well… we don’t know, it doesn’t show in the system.’

I said, ‘I have a book presentation in Frankfurt today at 3 PM. Either you let me go, or I call my German publisher and put the Tbilisi Airport — as an MIA branch — and the executor of its shameful orders into an international scandal.’

‘No, we’ll let you go,’ — they got scared. ‘Just sign here,’ they said, and they withdrew the MIA fine notice.

Mikheil Samkharadze wrote yesterday the same thing: ‘Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport, are you seriously losing it?’”

— Tamta Dolenjashvili, social media post