Thousands protest
Standing in front of the parliament, whose facade was also lit up with projections of festive snowflake images, several thousand protesters loudly booed and whistled at the tall tree, deriding ruling party representatives as “slaves”.
Several dozen protesters held up photos of alleged victims of police violence during the last two weeks’ protests, where police have deployed water cannon and tear gas.
At the scheduled time for the lights to be switched on, the mayor announced at a press briefing that the event would be postponed until “the radical opposition” unblocked access for children and made it possible to light up the tree.
Georgia is an Orthodox Christian country that celebrates Christmas on January 7 according to the old Julian calendar, but decorating trees is also a New Year’s tradition, a legacy of the Soviet era.
A cordon of riot police kept supporters of Georgian Dream and pro-EU protesters apart on the avenue near parliament.
The postponement was “a small victory for us,” said Irina Machavariani, who had come to the protest with her mother.
This showed the authorities “can’t do everything just the way they want”, said the private university lecturer.
“They have to respect us and we are standing here with a purpose.”
“Yes it’s a small victory,” agreed Lasha Kvlividze, a 22-year-old student who said he hopes the protest will make “our ruling party go away”.
