Speaker of the Georgian Parliament responds to the visit of OSCE Chairperson-in-Office / Finnish Foreign Minister on Rustaveli Avenue on X.

“Just so that you know: the street where the OSCE chairperson (who is also Finnish foreign minister) is standing is the capital city’s main thoroughfare. What you observe is the scene of a few dozen radicals, who stormed the presidential palace a few days ago and injured 25 police officers, two of them gravely, blocking the road, in violation of law.

Georgian legislation, like that of any OSCE member country, offers the guarantees of the right to assemble everywhere, and the blocking of the road is only acceptable when the large number of people cannot be contained on the sidewalk. Finnish minister may not be aware of this but she would not be able to name a single case when this right was violated by the Georgian state in the last 13 years.

You also see, right behind the minister, the square in front of the Parliament building, where a crowd ten times greater than those few dozen blocking the road, including the Finnish minister herself, could be easily fitted for a peaceful assembly, without blocking the traffic.

What the Finnish minister and OSCE chairperson is doing right there is violation of Georgian legislation. It also violates the article 41 of the Vienna convention, which, ironicaly, was adopted in the same city where the OSCE is headquartered. What she thus shows to Georgian people is that she supports the violent coup organizers and that the rules-based international order is an empty phrase.

Also, it seems Finnish authorities are much less lenient towards the road-blocking protesters in Helsinki than in Tbilisi”, - writes Shalva Papuashvili.