20:55, 8 April 2004

Georgian human right defenders want Mikhail Gorbachev to be arrested

The All-Georgian Association for the Defense of Human Rights expressed a protest against the visit of former president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev to Tbilisi designed for April 9. The organization demanded that the Georgian law-enforcement agencies arrested him.

"The 9 April [1989] tragedy, when innocent people died on Rustaveli Avenue in the center of Tbilisi by order of the USSR leaders, happened through Gorbachev's direct fault. If Gorbachev comes to Tbilisi, our organization will go on a hunger strike in token of protest," the head of the association, Georgy Kervalishvili, said today.

On 9 April 1989, a clash between subdivisions of the Soviet troops and participants in a meeting of the national liberation movement led by Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava took place in the center of Tbilisi. According to official data, it left 20 people dead. Several hundreds of meeting participants were gassed.

Source: RIA Novosti