Massive protests have been taking place in Tbilisi #Georgia all night, with riot police violently dispersing them with water cannons and tear gas.

This is a continuation of the protests that started weeks ago against Georgia’s pro-Russian government trying to enact a “foreign agents” law modeled after Russian laws which essentially shut down any non-government controlled journalism because even receiving money from YouTube or Patreon makes you a “foreign agent”.

But the protests have much broader background - Georgia had a clear pro-EU course in 2000’s which was stopped on the state level after Russian invasion in 2008 and installment of pro-Russian government of Ivanishvili. But population remained largely pro-EU, in the same way as in #Hungary, where protests were also taking place recently. So this is really a conflict about Georgia’s future - whether it should remain a Russian colony or an independent country, settings its own foreign policy. For economical reasons, which are obvious to anyone who has been to Ukraine, Armenia or Georgia, most people prefer the EU course.

Russian narrative is that these protests are “funded by CIA”, which is what Russians say about any protests rising against Putin, but you can ask yourself - would you be ready to spend weeks protesting on streets, risking arrest, beating, tear gas or killing for some moderate “CIA payment”? Of course not, the people marching on the streets of Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon (Arab Spring), Kyiv (Euromaidan) and Tbilisi did that because they absolutely desperate and deprived of their future for decades.

It’s actually quite easy to spot paid protests, these are all these pro-Russian ones where people with Russian flags arrive by buses in organized way, spend a few hours and then go home.