Tbilisi, Jul 11 (AP) Several thousand people protested in front of Georgian parliament on Sunday evening, demanding that the former Soviet prime minister resign over the death of a journalist who was attacked by anti-LGBT protesters was and was beaten.
According to TV Pirveli channel, cameraman Alexander Lashkarva was found dead by his mother at her house on Sunday. Lashkarava was one of dozens of journalists who were attacked by opponents of an LGBT march last Monday, which was to take place that day in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Organizers of the Tbilisi March for Dignity canceled the event, saying authorities had not given adequate security guarantees. Protesters in the march blocked the capital’s main street, blaming journalists covering the protest as pro-LGBT campaigners and throwing sticks and bottles at them.
The Lashkarwa, according to their aide Miranda Baghaturia, was thrashed by a mob of 20 people. Later local TV channels showed him with bruises on his face and blood on the floor around him. Media reports said he suffered multiple injuries and had to undergo surgery but was discharged from the hospital on Thursday.
The cause of his death was not immediately clear.
Police launched an investigation into Lashkareva’s death, which was described by both Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and President Salome Zurabishvili as “a tragedy”. Animosity against sexual minorities is strong in the conservative Black Sea nation of Georgia.
The Tbilisi Pride group said on Monday that opponents of the planned march have the backing of the government and the Georgian Orthodox Church. The Open Caucasus media group published a photo of a man, saying a local TV journalist was dragged away from the scene in a headlock by an Orthodox priest.
Zurabashvili condemned the violence, but Garibashvili alleged that the march was organized by “radical opposition” forces, which they claimed were led by ex-president Mikhail Saakashvili.
A large crowd of demonstrators gathered in Tbilisi on Sunday demanding that the authorities punish those responsible for attacks on journalists and urged Garibashvili to step down. Some protesters accused the prime minister of promoting violence by publicly condemning the LGBT march. (AP) MRJ
(This story is published as part of an auto-generated Syndicate wire feed. Headline or body have not been edited by ABP Live.)
.