Detained opponents of Namakhvan HPP released

The Kutaisi City Court has postponed the trial of the protesters against the construction of a hydroelectric power plant (HPP) in the Rioni Gorge. Eight detainees were released in the courtroom.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in the morning on May 27, several dozen activists blocked the office of the "Enka" Construction Company located in the village of Gumati. The protesters threw stones at the metal gates installed by the police; an investigation is underway of the case of property damage; eight people were detained for disobeying the police, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has reported.

Protests against the construction of the Namakhvan HPP continue for almost six months. On March 29, the Prime Minister of Georgia announced that the construction of the Namakhvan HPP would be suspended for 9-12 months in order to thoroughly check its impact on the environment. However, on April 4, the preparatory works for the construction of the Namakhvan cascade of hydroelectric power plants were resumed despite Georgian authorities' promises.

The trial of the opponents of the construction of the Namakhvan HPP was postponed until June 4; all the detainees were released from the Kutaisi City Court, the "Report Georgia" News Agency has informed.

The trial postponement was initiated by the advocates. They demanded additional time to familiarize themselves with the case materials and obtain the proofs, the Agency has noted.

Zaal Gorgodze, a lawyer, said that the advocates demanded to stop the administrative cases against the detainees. According to his story, activists believe that they had been detained illegally and they committed no offenses, the "InterPressNews" has reported.

The defence has proofs of detainees' innocence, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has translated the words of Dali Sulakvelidze, an advocate, broadcast by the "Rustavi-2".

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 28, 2021 at 09:47 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.