Thousands of protesters in Georgia had a stand-off with riot police amid a political crisis that could wreck their country’s hopes of joining the European Union and bring it back under the Kremlin’s control.
Waving Georgian and EU flags, an estimated 20,000 people — up from 5,000 the night before — demonstrated outside parliament in the capital Tbilisi on Tuesday night after MPs gave initial approval to a controversial “foreign agent” law. The row is a decisive moment for Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people on the Black Sea that gained independence from Moscow in 1991.
“No to the Russia law,” protesters chanted amid a heavy police presence. Dozens of people were arrested on Tuesday when police used tear gas and pepper spray to
