According to Bagaturia, the two were “completely defenseless”. “There was only one police officer and he couldn’t help us. ‘Lekso’ was beaten mercilessly by the crowd and lay in a pool of blood. I screamed and cried and begged, ‘Don’t kill us!’
Initially, Bagaturia thought that the cameraman had died on the spot. “At first I could hear his voice, but then he fell silent and I thought, ‘That’s it, they killed him'”.
As a result of the violence, the organization decided not to let the parade go ahead. “We cannot risk lives by taking to the streets when violent attackers are everywhere,” the organization said in a statement.
Violence condemned
Outside Georgia, the violence was strongly condemned. Human Rights Watch spoke of “a sad day in Georgia’s democratic development”. VVD MP Hatte van der Woude called the images shocking and called on European leaders to work for freedoms and equal rights in Georgia.
Church leadership condemned the violence against journalists, but blamed Tbilisi Pride. according to the patriarchy “a non-traditional lifestyle and signs of moral, psychological and ideological violence against the population” have provoked an “inevitable reaction”.
The day after the storm, thousands of protesters against homophobic violence gathered outside the Georgian parliament building. People also took European flags with them, almost rainbow flags. Even then there were counter-protesters, who burned a European flag.
–
