Far right-wing nationalists attack Pride festival in Georgian capital
Upwards of 2,000 plus anti-LGBTQ protesters violently disrupted the LGBTQ Pride festival in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Saturday, scuffling with police and destroying rainbow flags, signs, festival banners and placards in what Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili labeled as “a shame for a country, which has for centuries considered tolerance as its identity.” Russian freelance journalist Sergei Dimitrov spoke with the Washington Blade by phone late Saturday afternoon from Tbilisi and said that a vast majority of the anti-LGBTQ nationalists he spoke with claimed membership with the group Alt-Info.
The right-wing, anti-Western group rose to prominence for leading anti-queer pogroms in Georgia in 2022 last year, had registered was registered by the National Public Registry Agency on Dec.
7, 2021, as political party with a pro-Russian sentiment, in part Dimitrov noted due to Putin’s war on Ukraine. According to a spokesperson for Tbilisi Pride, the group and Pride participants were forced had to leave the area where the event was being held.
On social media the group posted a warning: “Please do not come to the festival territory! We had to evacuated. The Ministry of Interior could not ensure the safety of the festival.” The group noted that police and failed to protect the event, forcing the evacuation, which was carried out by bus and taxi cabs.
