Lead Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Peter Stano, on Monday, “strongly condemned acts of intimidation, threats, and physical assaults against the protesters, the civil society activists, politicians, journalists, and media workers” during the anti-transparency bill rallies in Tbilisi.

Peter Stano called on the Georgian authorities “to ensure the right to protest, and investigate properly all the misconduct, and all the violations if they have been committed.”

“What we are seeing in Georgia is really impressive commitment and desire by the vast majority of the Georgian population for the EU future and the EU path of their country. We really expect the Georgian government and Georgian authorities in power to mirror this desire and this attachment of their people to democracy and European values which we share.

What we have seen in the last few days in Georgia in terms of response from the authorities, especially from the police was violence and we strongly condemn acts of intimidation, threats, and physical assaults against the protesters, against the civil society activists, against politicians and against journalists and media workers. These are brutal actions and these brutal actions we have seen also in the night from yesterday to today. We strongly condemn this.

We call on the authorities to ensure the right to protest people, we call on the authorities to investigate properly all the misconduct, and all the violations if they have been committed, and we expect that those responsible for it will be brought to justice; and in general what the EU will do it is not what HR/VP [The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission] desires to do but the EU and member states are watching the situation in Georgia very closely, number of our member states spoke out very clearly and very loudly about what they think about the situation,” EEAS Spokesperson asserted.

As for the sanctions, Stano said “The sanctions are not something that the HR/VP to decide; the sanctions are decided by the member states when they find a consensus that nothing else will bring the desired results, we are not there yet.”

“Georgia after all is a candidate country, and again we hope, we expect and we call on authorities to go back to the European path and deliver on all the commitments they took upon themselves voluntarily when they applied for the candidate status for their country,” Stano stated.