Anti-Namakhvani HPP protest leader Varlam Goletiani said the society would gather every evening in Gumati village to make noise and try to cross the police-erected iron wall to move towards the construction site.

“This process will continue until our demands are met,” Goletiani stressed.

Goletiani echoed Lelo for Georgia’s initiative to hold a parliamentary committee hearing over the Namakhvani HPP issue.

“I attended the committee hearings twice, there is an inadequate environment with no substantive dialogue on issues. We repeatedly offered the authorities a format and told them what conditions were needed for us to sit down at the negotiating table. Running in the same circle will not give us results, we are not going to participate,” Goletiani said.

Eight anti-Namakhvani protesters have been arrested over administrative offenses after a skirmish between protesters and police in the village of Gumati last night, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia reported.

The detentions followed a clash as protesters attempted to cross over iron fences but the police did not let them.

The protests against the HPP construction have been underway in western Georgia for almost six months. The Georgian government suspended the HPP construction for 9 to 12 months until the environmental, geological, and seismological surveys are reviewed. Nevertheless, local protesters plan to continue rallies. They believe the HPP would be constructed anyway, which they oppose.