A stroll through the cells

On Monday I decided to get an early start on the day and spend the morning being a tourist. Having figured out over the weekend how to get down to Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi’s main boulevard, I decided to walk down there, see the sights and visit the protestors that had been camped out in front of the parliament building for two months going on three.

It turns out Tbilisians don’t rub the sleepy stuff out of their eyes and get going until around 10 a.m. whether you’re a shop owner or a opposition agitator.

It might have just been the fact that it was Monday morning, but from what I could see in my quick pass through, the reports appeared to be correct that most of the cells erected and occupied by the opposition over the last few months have emptied out. I saw a few guys in the more open ones playing chess, but since there were no organized rallies that morning the sit-in was stunningly non-dramatic.

That said, on the backside of the Georgian Parliament I was accosted by several guards as soon as I began pulling out my camera to shoot some of the cells that had been built that side of the building. As a journalist I had every right to shoot anyway, but since I hadn’t officially received my credentials from the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I backed off voluntarily.

Later that day, however, the New York Times reported that there was indeed a scuffle between police, protestors and the journalists on the scene. Several journalists — mostly Georgian according to the reports — were beaten and had their cameras seized, so credentials might not have helped all that much anyway.

For what it’s worth, Georgian Deputy Interior Minister Eka Zguladze said sorry.

She apologized for injuries to journalists and said the police should not have taken away their cameras.

“This is our mistake, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs wants to acknowledge it,” Ms. Zguladze said. “It is our duty to protect the right of journalists to work.