Japaridze’s arrest on Monday comes as Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze accused the opposition of “coordinated violence” aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order.

The Coalition for Change, the country’s largest opposition party, confirmed Japaridze’s arrest early in a post on X.

“Japaridze was fleeing together with other protesters as he was grabbed, indicating this was a conscious, targeted move by the regime,” the statement said.

Footage showed Japaridze being placed in an unmarked vehicle by masked police early on Monday. It was unclear if he would be charged with any offence.

The ongoing protests in Georgia were prompted by the government’s announcement last week that it was suspending talks on joining the EU.

Critics saw that as confirmation of a Russian-influenced shift away from pro-Western policies, something the ruling party denies.

The United States and the EU have voiced alarm at what they see as democratic backsliding by Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that lies at the intersection of Europe and Asia and was once part of the Soviet Union.

Russia denies interfering in its neighbour’s affairs, but former President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday that Georgia was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss”.

“Usually this sort of thing ends very badly,” he added.

On Sunday night, protesters gathered again in Tbilisi on the central Rustaveli Avenue for the fourth night. Some tossed fireworks at police, who responded with volleys of water cannon and tear gas.

Police eventually ended the standoff by moving demonstrators away from the parliament building.

Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said 21 police officers had been injured during the overnight protest, with 113 hurt since the beginning of the unrest.

Dozens of protesters have also been injured since the latest demonstrations began, and the US has condemned what it called the excessive use of police force.

President Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-EU figure who backs the protesters, said many of those arrested had suffered head and face injuries as a result of beatings.

“This is the revolt of an entire country,” she told French news group France Inter.

Hundreds of diplomats and civil servants have signed open letters protesting the decision to suspend talks with the EU and stop receiving any funds from the bloc for four years. At least four Georgian ambassadors have resigned.

Zourabichvili has called for pressure to be brought on the Constitutional Court to annul elections won by the ruling party, Georgian Dream, in October. Both the opposition and Zourabichvili say the poll was rigged.Kobakhidze, the prime minister, has rejected their call for new elections.

Tension in Georgia has been building for months as the ruling party has passed laws on “foreign agents” and on curbing LGBTQ rights.

Georgian Dream says it is acting to defend the country’s sovereignty against outside interference and prevent the West from dragging it into a war with Russia.

The protests on Sunday topped months of tensions fuelled by critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party, which some charge has moved the country away from its path towards greater integration with Europe and instead towards Russia.

The unrest kicked into overdrive after the government last week announced it would freeze EU talks for four years. Protesters have further condemned the police response – which has included the use of tear gas and water cannon – as excessive.

On Sunday, the outrage was further stoked by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s rejection of appeals to hold new parliamentary elections.

When asked if the vote would be held again, he told reporters: “Of course not.”

He added that “the formation of the new government based on the October 26 parliamentary elections has been completed.”

Still, the opposition continues to condemn the vote. President Salome Zurabishvili, who supports joining the EU, has asked the Constitutional Court to annul the election results and declared the new legislature and government “illegitimate”.

Speaking to the AFP news agency on Saturday, Zurabishvili, whose term ends this month, said she would not step aside until the elections are rerun.

Georgian Dream has nominated far-right former football international Mikheil Kavelashvili for the presidential post, which is largely ceremonial.

On Sunday, protesters again gathered in the capital, Tbilisi, predominantly on the central Rustaveli Avenue, with many waving EU and Georgian flags. Some wore diving masks to protect themselves against tear gas.

But the demonstrations appeared to be spreading as Georgian media reported protests in at least eight cities and towns.

In the Black Sea city of Poti, protesters blocked an access road to the country’s main commercial port, according to the Interpress news agency.

Opposition TV channel Formula also showed footage of people in Khashuri, a town of 20,000 in central Georgia, throwing eggs at the local Georgian Dream office and tearing down the party’s flag.

At least 150 protesters have been arrested across the country.

Both the United States and EU – which have been vocal about concerns over the apparent lurch towards Russia – have voiced support for the protesters.

On Saturday, the US said it was suspending a strategic partnership Washington maintains with Tbilisi, condemning the “excessive force used against Georgians exercising their freedom to protest”.

Kobakhidze dismissed the move as a “temporary event” and said he would instead focus on the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in January.

The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, on Sunday also warned Georgian authorities over violence against demonstrators with France, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania also voicing concern.

Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in turn, has accused the countries of seeking to “interfere in the functioning of the institutions of a sovereign state”.

But from within the country, hundreds of public servants in government ministries have also issued joint statements protesting against Kobakhidze’s decision to suspend EU talks.

More than 200 Georgian diplomats also criticised the suspension, saying it contradicted the constitution and would lead the country “into international isolation”.

For its part, the Kremlin – which has long accused the West of fomenting revolution in former Soviet countries – has not directly commented on the protests.

However, security official Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president, has claimed an attempted revolution was taking place.

He wrote on Telegram that Georgia was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss. Usually this sort of thing ends very badly.”

Georgia has leaned strongly towards Europe and the West since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Its move away from Moscow was hastened by a brief war with Russia in 2008.

Last year, it became an official candidate for EU membership and has been promised eventual NATO membership.

Irakli Kobakhidze confirmed reports that Georgia’s ambassador to the US, David Zalkaliani, had become the latest senior diplomat to stand down, stressing that he had come under considerable pressure.

Protests continued on Sunday for a fourth night running, as Georgians vented their anger at the ruling party’s decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union.

Kobakhidze sought to deny the reason for the protests, saying on Sunday that “we have not suspended anything, it’s a lie”.

Only three days before, his party Georgian Dream had accused the EU of using talks on joining the union as “blackmail” and said the government had decided not to put the issue on the agenda until the end of 2028.

It is part of Georgia’s constitution to ensure that “all measures” are taken to bring the country into both the EU and Nato.

However, Georgia’s increasingly authoritarian government has been accused by the EU and US of democratic backsliding. On Saturday, the US said it was suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia.

Kobakhidze said, at a news conference that Georgian Dream was still “committed to European integration… and we are continuing on our path to the European dream”.

And yet an increasing array of public officials do not appear to believe that is the case. Several ambassadors have resigned, and hundreds of civil servants and 2,800 teachers have signed letters condemning the decision to put EU accession on hold.

Many Georgians have been shocked by the level of violence directed at Georgian journalists as well as protesters. Dozens of reporters have been beaten or pepper sprayed and some have needed hospital treatment.

Georgia’s human rights ombudsman Levan Ioseliani said “this is brutality”, and he appealed to police not to abuse their power.

On Sunday, the prime minister said it was opposition groups and not the police that had meted out “systemic violence”.

Georgian ex-ambassador to the EU Natalie Sabanadze, now at Chatham House in the UK, believes the level of violence, the string of resignations and civil disobedience indicate a “qualitative change” to the protests now taking place.

“Maybe [the government] thought people would be scared, but it’s not working out like this,” she said.

“Yesterday civil society activists and artists went to the public broadcaster and took it over and forced their way into the live stream. I’ve seen this before, in pre-revolutionary Georgia [in 2003].”

Georgia’s pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, is due to step down in a matter of weeks, however since last month’s contested parliamentary elections which opposition parties have denounced as rigged, she has become a powerful figurehead, rallying protesters against the government and calling for a new vote.

She and the protesters accuse the government of aiming to drag their country back into Russia’s sphere of influence, even though an overwhelming majority of the population backs joining the EU.

Georgia has a population of some 3.7 million and 20% of its territory is under Russian military occupation in two breakaway regions.

After a third night of protests in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities such as Batumi, Zugdidi and Kutaisi, smaller groups occupied a traffic intersection during the day on Sunday in front of Tbilisi State University.

“I’m here for my country’s future and the future of my three-year-old son,” said one protester called Salome, aged 29. “I don’t want him to spend his life at protests and I don’t want a Russian government.”

While Georgian Dream flatly denies any links to the Kremlin, it has in the past year adopted Russian-style laws that target civil society groups with funding from abroad as well as LGBT rights.

Half an hour’s walk away from the daylight protest, a small army of cleaners were trying to scrub off graffiti from a wall in front of the Georgian parliament.

Some of the windows of the building were smashed overnight, and an effigy was set alight of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire seen as the driving force behind Georgian Dream’s 12 years in power.

The question now is what will happen next in Georgia’s deepening political and constitutional crisis.

The Georgian Dream government’s relations with its Western partners are very badly damaged.

The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned on Sunday that the government’s actions would “have direct consequences from EU side”, and the US decision to suspend its strategic partnership will also be widely felt.

The Georgian prime minister had little time for the president or her call for new elections.

“Mrs Salome Zourabichvili has four Fridays left [as president] and she can’t get used to it. I understand her emotional state, but of course on 29 December she’ll have to leave.”

Thousands of Georgians protested on Saturday for a third straight night after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the government will suspend talks on EU accession.

The goal to join the 27-member is now enshrined in Georgia’s constitution, but the prime minister – who has been building closer ties with Russia – suspended the talks for four years and accused Brussels of “blackmail”.

In an address on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of the Georgian Dream governing party, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.

The president, whose powers are largely ceremonial, maintains that the country’s October 26 election, which was won by Georgian Dream with 54 percent of the vote, was fraudulent and therefore renders the elected parliament illegitimate.

“There is no legitimate parliament, and therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.

Georgia election commission earlier this month confirmed the governing party as the winner, but watchdogs and politicians in the EU and the United States have also suggested an investigation needs to look into potential fraud.

The country’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday it had arrested 107 people in the capital, Tblisi, overnight during protests which saw some demonstrators build barricades and throw fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and tear gas.

The unrest came as Kobakhidze, the prime minister, accused opponents of the government’s move to halt EU accession talks of plotting a revolution, similar to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which deposed a pro-Russian president.

“In Georgia, the Maidan scenario cannot be realised. Georgia is a state, and the state will not, of course, permit this,” Kobakhidze was quoted as saying by local media.

The US State Department said on Saturday it had suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia following the decision by the Georgian Dream party to suspend accession to the EU.

“We condemn excessive force used against Georgians rightfully protesting this betrayal of their constitution – EU is a bulwark against Kremlin,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote on X.

“We have therefore suspended our Strategic Partnership with Georgia.”

Georgia gained independence from neighbouring Russia in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the two countries have not had any diplomatic relations since a brief 2008 war over Moscow-backed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But the Georgian Dream party’s efforts to build closer relations with Russia had already stalled the country’s application to join the EU.

The bloc has said laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ rights are among the main reasons behind the stall, as they curtail human rights and are modelled after legislation in Russia.

Salome Zourabichvili, who has sided with the opposition, described the current parliament as “illegitimate” after allegations of fraud in last month’s elections.

Zourabichvili said she would retain her role as president, despite the country’s newly elected parliament saying it would choose her replacement on 14 December.

Mass protests in the capital are continuing to erupt for a third consecutive night on Saturday in the capital Tbilisi.

Riot police have been deployed around the country’s parliament, the focal point of three nights of protests.

Officers again used tear gas and water cannon against protesters into the early hours of Sunday, as they tried to push people away from the parliament building.

Demonstrations were also taking place in the cities of Batumi, Kutaisi, Zugdidi, and other Georgian regions.

“I’m offering this stability for the transition, because what these people on the streets are demanding is a call for new elections in order to restore this country and its European path,” said Zourabichvili.

Hundreds of civil servants have signed letters expressing their disapproval of the government’s decision to put negotiations with the EU on hold, saying it went against the national interests of Georgia.

Georgian ambassadors to Bulgaria, Netherlands and Italy have also resigned.

The US said on Saturday that it was suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia, citing the government’s “various anti-democratic actions”.

Since 2012, Georgia has been governed by Georgian Dream, a party which critics say has tried to move the country away from the EU and closer to Russia.

The party claimed victory in last month’s election but opposition MPs are boycotting the new parliament, alleging fraud.

On Thursday, the European Parliament backed a resolution, describing the election as the latest stage in Georgia’s “worsening democratic crisis” and saying that the ruling party was “fully responsible”.

It expressed particular concern about reports of voter intimidation, vote-buying and manipulation, and harassment of observers.

Following the resolution, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said his government had “decided not to bring up the issue of joining the European Union on the agenda until the end of 2028”.

In response, thousands of pro-EU protesters started demonstrating outside Georgian Dream offices in the cities of Tbilisi and Kutaisi on Thursday.

A group of public figures, writers and journalists have also been protesting outside the country’s public broadcaster in the capital Tbilisi, accusing it of being a mouthpiece for the country’s ruling party.

“The public broadcaster must be freed from the influence of the Russians and the pressure of the regime,” said writer and activist Lasha Bugadze.

“The public broadcaster covers the whole of Georgia and they are brainwashing our population with propaganda, people who may not be sure what is going on,” he said.

Four opposition coalitions and parties that won seats in last month’s parliamentary elections but refused to take up their mandates citing widespread vote rigging have issued a joint statement, calling for fresh elections under international supervision.

“Parties with a legitimate mandate of the Georgian people will confront the illegitimate regime of Georgian Dream and the systemic violence against peaceful demonstrators and journalists,” read the statement.

In a statement, the US condemned the “excessive use of force” in Georgia and called on all sides to ensure the protests remain peaceful.

“The Georgian people overwhelmingly support integration with Europe,” a statement from the State Department said.

Some 150 people were detained following the 29 November protests in the capital Tbilisi. Police used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.

At dawn on 30 November the police crackdown intensified as they began chasing the demonstrators, with reports of protesters being kicked and beaten with batons.

The prime minister said that 50 police officers were injured at the hands of “violent protesters who threw Molotov cocktails, pyrotechnics, glass, stones at the police”.

Kobakhidze has also lashed out at European politicians for “hurling a cascade of insults” at the Georgian government.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream party, announced the decision on Wednesday, calling the 53-year-old former deputy and footballer “the embodiment of a Georgian man” before a vote on the mostly ceremonial position on December 14.

Kavelashvili, a striker in the Premier League for Manchester City in the mid-1990s who later became known for his hardline, anti-Western statements as leader of a Georgian Dream splinter group called People’s Power, is all but certain to win the electoral college vote, given the ruling party’s sway over its members.

The Black Sea nation has been rocked by turmoil since Georgian Dream won disputed parliamentary elections on October 26, which were widely seen as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union.

 In a speech accepting the nomination, Kavelashvili, pledged to unite Georgia while accusing the outgoing president of having “insulted and ignored” the constitution.

Zurabishvili whose six-year term expires next month, was elected by popular vote.

But Georgia approved constitutional changes in 2017 that abolished the direct election of the president, replacing it with a vote by a 300-seat electoral college dominated by Georgian Dream.

Although the president’s post is largely ceremonial, the choice of Kavelashvili is likely to be viewed by the EU and the United States as a further sign that Georgia is turning away from the West and moving closer to Russia.

The ruling party, accused of democratic backsliding and deepening ties with Russia, says it wants Georgia to join the EU, but Brussels says Tbilisi’s application is frozen over newly passed laws on “foreign agents” and restrictions on LGBTQ rights.

Kavelashvili accused the opposition of being steered by US congressmen who have “an insatiable desire to destroy our country” and are planning for “a direct violent revolution” and the Ukrainisation of Georgia”.

European election observers said last month’s elections took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and violence.

Georgian Dream opened the first session of the new parliament on Monday as opposition members refused to take their seats in protest. On Tuesday, the ruling party’s lawmakers set the date for the presidential election.

Constitutional law experts said decisions taken by the new parliament are invalid because there has been no ruling yet on Zurabishvili’s legal challenge of the results of the October elections.

The parliament set the date in a session on Tuesday, amid a boycott by the opposition, which says last month’s elections were rigged. The installation of a new president promises to cement the grip of the ruling Georgian Dream party that was declared victor.

The date was selected under new rules pushed through by Georgian Dream in 2017, which are criticised as designed to ensure a loyalist’s victory. For the first time, the president will be chosen by an electoral college instead of a popular vote.

The new leader’s inauguration for a five-year term, instead of the current six years, will take place on December 29, according to the parliamentary decree agreed on Tuesday.

Antigovernment protests called by incumbent President Salome Zourabichvili persist in Tbilisi with opposition parties continuing to dispute the results of the October 26 parliamentary elections. The pro-Western head of state’s six-year term ends next month.

Opposition lawmakers have refused to take their seats in the new parliament, which convened for its first session on Monday.

Zourabichvili has declared the new legislature “unconstitutional” and is seeking to annul the election results.

European election observers said the balloting took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and violence.

According to the official results, Georgian Dream took 54 percent of the vote, handing it a fifth term since 2012. The party denies allegations of electoral fraud.

Under the new process, a 300-member electoral college made up of all 150 MPs and representatives from local and regional authorities will choose the new president in an open ballot and without prior debate in the parliamentary chamber. The role of president is largely ceremonial but has influence, especially regarding Georgia’s international image.

Candidates must be nominated by at least 30 members of the selection body, which Georgian Dream will have control over because it holds a majority both in the national parliament and in regional and local councils.

To win in the first round, a candidate must secure two-thirds of the votes. If this threshold is not met, a second round will be held on the same day in which a simple majority is enough.

The powers of the next president will also be reduced under the constitutional reform.The president will remain the head of state, the commander-in-chief and Georgia’s official representative on the world stage but will no longer be entitled to conduct negotiations with foreign countries or declare martial law without the prime minister’s approval.

Constitutional law experts said decisions taken by the new parliament are invalid because there has been no ruling yet on Zourabichvili’s legal effort to have the results of the October elections annulled.

Many Georgians viewed the election as a referendum on the country’s bid to join the European Union.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream – established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia – of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted towards Moscow.