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75-year-old Marina Terishvili’s teenage son, Mamuka, was shot dead during a nationalist rally in Georgia in 1992. Now her other son, Giorgi, has been arrested for his role in protests against alleged Russian influence in their home country.

Seven police cars stopped at her home in the capital Tbilisi on Friday and took Giorgi, a 52-year-old taxi driver, into custody, she said.

He was remanded in custody for two months for “participation in group violence,” and faces up to six years in prison if convicted, according to a rights group and local media, as part of a broad crackdown on protesters who have clashed with police nightly for almost two weeks.

The rights group the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association said he had not yet entered a plea and Marina Terishvili said she did not know why he had been detained.

“I cannot deny that he went to the meetings, because he has a brother who died on February 2, 1992, and he went there in honor of his soul,” Marina said, adding that Giorgi could not tolerate the idea that his younger brother had died in vain.

Mamuka was 17 when he was killed during the brief civil war that followed Georgia’s departure from the Soviet Union in 1991, ending 200 years of Russian rule.

Giorgi is among more than 400 people authorities and human rights groups say have been arrested during protests against government measures to delay the South Caucasus country’s long-standing bid to join the European Union.

About 30 of them face criminal charges, mainly related to accusations of “group violence” aimed at overthrowing the government. The prisoners include two leaders of the country’s pro-EU opposition.

Rights groups say the crackdown has no recent precedent in Georgia, a country seen as one of the most pro-Western and democratic successor states to the Soviet Union.

Fireworks

Some protesters have thrown fireworks and other projectiles at police, arguing they are defending themselves from tear gas and baton attacks. The Interior Ministry said on Monday that more than 150 police officers were injured.

The Georgian Dream party, which officials say won elections in October and the opposition says is tainted by fraud, sparked widespread anger in the country of 3.7 million when it announced last month that it would suspend EU accession negotiations until 2028 aprons.

Georgian Dream says it favors a pragmatic policy towards Russia, which supports two regions that split from Georgia after the country left the Soviet Union. The party says its goal is to ensure peace amid the war in Ukraine, which has been disrupted by Russian invading forces since early 2022.

Western countries have condemned the crackdown and the EU ambassador to Georgia said on Monday it deserves sanctions.

Georgian Ombudsman Levan Ioseliani, a former opposition politician appointed by Georgian Dream, said on Tuesday that his office had visited 327 detainees, 225 of whom said they had been mistreated and 157 had visible injuries.

Police reported finding fireworks and petrol bomb-making equipment at two opposition party headquarters. Both sides said the items had been planted.

At a briefing on Monday, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze called the parties’ buildings a “hotbed of violence” and said their attempt to seize power had failed.

Masked men in black stage attacks

Gangs of masked men in black have started attacking opposition politicians, activists and some journalists in recent days.

Opposition supporters call the gangs “titushky,” a Ukrainian word for thugs who attacked opponents of a pro-Russian government before the 2014 Maidan revolution, which prompted the president to flee to Moscow.

Two journalists from a pro-opposition television channel suffered visible head injuries in a December 7 attack captured in their live broadcast of a protest.

That same day, Koba Khabazi, a prominent member of the opposition Coalition for Change party, suffered serious head injuries after being attacked in the building that houses his party’s headquarters.

CCTV footage obtained by Reuters shows 15 men dressed in black entering the building and confronting Khabazi, pushing him down a flight of stairs, before punching and kicking him on the head as he lays motionless on the ground.

Two days later, speaking to Reuters, Khabazi, a 57-year-old former lawmaker, blamed the Georgian government for the attack.

“Of course the government is behind this,” Khabazi said, his head still wrapped in bandages. “This government is built on violence.”

Georgian authorities have stated that they were not involved in the attacks and condemned them. Ruling party officials have suggested they are being carried out by the opposition to trap the Georgian Dream.