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TBILISI: Georgian riot police used pepper spray and water cannons to drive demonstrators away from the presidential palace and detained five activists on Saturday, as the opposition staged a large demonstration on a day of local elections.
The governing Georgian Dream party said it had clinched victory in every municipality across the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million people in an election boycotted by the two largest opposition blocs.
Shortly before polls closed, a group of demonstrators attempted to force entry to the presidential palace in the capital Tbilisi, a Reuters witness said, after opposition figures called for a “peaceful revolution” against GD, which they accuse of being pro-Russian and authoritarian.

Georgia’s pro-Western opposition has been staging protests since October last year, when GD won a parliamentary election that its critics say was fraudulent. The party has rejected accusations of vote-rigging.
Once one of the most pro-Western nations to emerge from the ashes of the Soviet Union, Georgia has had frayed relations with the West since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
On Saturday the Health Ministry said 21 members of the security forces and six demonstrators had been injured in clashes in the center of Tbilisi, according to local media.
Georgia’s Rustavi-2 television and Russian state media quoted Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandre Darakhvelidze as saying the police detained five activists, including the opera singer Paata Burchuladze and two members of the United National Movement, Georgia’s largest opposition party.
They are charged with calling for the overthrow of the authorities and face up to nine years in prison, if convicted, Darakhvelidze said.
The government froze accession talks to the European Union soon after last year’s vote, abruptly halting a longstanding national goal and triggering large demonstrations that have continued since.
Thousands of protesters gathered on central Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue, waving Georgian and EU flags.
Davit Mzhavanadze, who attended the demonstration, said the protests were part of “a deep crisis which is absolutely formed by our pro-Russian and authoritarian government.”
“I think this protest will continue until these demands will be responded to properly from our government,” he said.
A smaller group of demonstrators marched to the presidential palace and were repelled by police after attempting to break into the building. Some of them then barricaded a nearby street, lighting fires and facing off with riot police.
Georgian Dream, which is widely seen as controlled by founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man and a former prime minister, denies it is pro-Moscow. It says it wants to join the EU while preserving peace with Russia, its huge neighbor to the north.
 

PORTLAND, Oregon: A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland, ruling in a lawsuit brought by the state and city.
US District Judge Karin Immergut issued the order pending further arguments in the suit. The plaintiffs say a deployment would violate the US Constitution as well as a federal law that generally prohibits the military from being used to enforce domestic laws.
Immergut wrote that the case involves the intersection of three fundamental democratic principles: “the relationship between the federal government and the states, between the military and domestic law enforcement, and the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
“Whether we choose to follow what the Constitution mandates with respect to these three relationships goes to the heart of what it means to live under the rule of law in the United States,” she wrote.
Generally speaking the president is allowed “a great level of deference” to federalize National Guard troops in situations where regular law enforcement forces are not able to execute the laws of the United States, the judge said, but that has not been the case in Portland.
Plaintiffs were able to show that the demonstrations at the Portland immigration facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days or weeks leading up to the president’s order, the judge wrote, and “overall, the protests were small and uneventful.”
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.”
The Defense Department had said it was placing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard under federal control for 60 days to protect federal property at locations where protests are occurring or likely to occur after Trump called the city “war-ravaged.”
Oregon officials said that description was ludicrous. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in the city has recently been the site of nightly protests, which typically drew a couple dozen people in recent weeks before the deployment was announced.
Trump The Republican president has deployed or threatened to deploy troops in several US cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, including Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Memphis. Speaking Tuesday to US military leaders in Virginia, the president proposed using cities as training grounds for the armed forces.
Last month a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of some 4,700 National Guard soldiers and Marines in Los Angeles earlier this year was illegal, but he allowed the 300 who remain in the city to stay as long as they do not enforce civilian laws.
As for Portland, the Defense Department announced that it was placing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard under federal control for 60 days to protect federal property at locations where protests are occurring or likely to occur.
That announcement came after Trump called “war-ravaged” in late September, a characterization that Oregon officials called ludicrous while saying they do not need or want federal troops there.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland has been the site of nightly protests, and the demonstrations and occasional clashes with law enforcement have been limited to a one-block area in a city that covers about 145 square miles (375 square km) and has about 636,000 residents.
A handful of immigration and legal advocates often gather at the building during the day. At night, recent protests have typically drawn a couple dozen people.
A larger crowd demonstrated Sept. 28 following the announcement of the guard deployment. The Portland Police Bureau, which has said it does not participate in immigration enforcement and only intervenes in the protests if there is vandalism or criminal activity, arrested two people on assault charges.
A peaceful march earlier that day drew thousands to downtown and saw no arrests, police said.
Trump sent federal officers to Portland over the objections of local and state leaders in 2020 during long-running racial justice protests following George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. The administration sent hundreds of agents for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.
That deployment antagonized demonstrators and prompted nightly clashes. Federal officers fired rubber bulled and used tear gas.
Viral videos captured federal officers arresting people and hustling them into unmarked vehicles. A report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that while the federal government had legal authority to deploy the officers, many of them lacked the training and equipment necessary for the mission.
The government agreed this year to settle an excessive force lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union by paying compensating several plaintiffs for their injuries.