TBILISI — "I'm standing for the future of this country," says Giorgi Arabuli, who has taken part in protests on the streets of Georgia's capital Tbilisi almost every night since they began a year ago.
Mass demonstrations were met with violent police crackdowns as tens of thousands of Georgians turned out, angered by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze's decision on 28 November 2024 to call a four-year halt on moves toward joining the EU.
"I'm from the generation of the 1990s. I've seen those dark times after the civil war," said Giorgi. "Most of it was caused by Russian influence in a post-Soviet country. We don't want to go back there."
Since then Georgians have seen a "dismantling of democracy", in the words of governments across Europe, and it has prompted accusations of Russian-style rule.
On the streets, the protests have evolved into a grinding war of attrition.
For months, Tbilisi's main Rustaveli Avenue was blocked for a few hours every evening. New laws and a heavy police presence forced the protesters to adapt, marching through adjacent streets and facing nightly arrests.
The Georgian Dream government has imposed massive fines for blocking roads, slapped criminal charges on young protesters and most recently pushed through a law allowing up to 14 days' imprisonment for a first offence of blocking traffic, with repeat offenders facing up to a year in jail.
"Freedom for regime prisoners," reads a large banner carried towards the nearby Supreme Court.
"They've used every method to crush the protests... but the fact is they haven't been able to," says Nata Koridze. Her husband, Zura Japaridze, is one of six key opposition figures jailed after refusing to testify before a parliamentary commission into alleged crimes by the previous government.
The six were jailed for up to eight months and banned from holding public office for two years.
Prosecutors have since announced new charges against eight opposition leaders, including Japaridze. They now face up to 15 years for alleged sabotage and aiding foreign powers.
Nata Koridze's husband is due to be released on 22 December but she says he is due to appear in court again three days later.
They are accused of communicating with Western partners about government abuses - standard democratic practice - as evidence of betraying state interests.
Japaridze, like all the jailed politicians, is held in solitary confinement.
"Zura has not seen anybody except for a doctor and the guard," she says.
Georgia's path to EU membership, once the cornerstone of its post-Soviet identity, is now farther away than ever.
Earlier this month, the EU's annual enlargement report delivered what its ambassador to Georgia called "devastating" findings, concluding it was now considered an EU candidate "in name only".
"Georgia is not on the trajectory to become an EU member state, neither in 2030 nor later," said Pawel Herczynski, rejecting the government's pledge to ensure membership by 2030.
The BBC approached the head of the parliamentary committee on European integration and other Georgian Dream MPs for comment, but no-one was available.
The government's public response has been increasingly hostile towards its foreign critics.
Parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili has accused the EU of "ideological and political dictates", telling pro-government TV this month that "today's Brussels does not want a Georgia that is like us".
"They want a country standing on one foot," he complained. "The policies and approaches in Brussels must be changed. For them, the Georgian people and their choice mean nothing, zero." — BBC
