Thousands of demonstrators protesting the Georgian government's decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union have clashed with police outside the parliament building for a second straight night.

Summary

Protests erupted in Georgia after the government suspended EU membership talks, sparking two nights of clashes with police in Tbilisi and Batumi.

Demonstrators accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party, linked to Russia, of election rigging and undermining democracy.

President Salome Zourabichvili joined protests, condemning police violence and the government’s stance. The EU had conditioned Georgia’s candidacy on reforms but suspended the process over anti-democratic laws.

Georgian PM Kobakhidze criticized EU “blackmail” and rejected grants until 2028, fueling accusations of authoritarianism and pro-Moscow policies. Tensions highlight Georgia’s volatile political trajectory.

  • gcheliotis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    23 days ago

    Nearly all of this guy’s comments are being removed. I suspect mod overreach along with a hefty dose of ideological bias, as usual.

    • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      23 days ago

      Nah looking at the other comments it’s not overreach dude is a troll. They ate a /c/worldnews ban which comes with comment removal, this just happens to be an innocuous one.

          • gcheliotis@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            23 days ago

            Thanks. Well the only thing I notice is that I do not agree with some - perhaps all - of his views. So, as I said, mod overreach and ideological bias. Same old. The downvote storm is almost inevitable for one who does not fit in, when you have created a silo with a strong hive-mind mentality. Oh well, I guess I have to accept that all online spaces are turning into echo chambers. Maybe it’s unavoidable.

            • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
              3·
              23 days ago

              Disagreements and getting downvoted are one thing, been there, done that. Getting that amount of downvotes in that short a time-frame with no other interactions anywhere on lemmy is a whole different game. It may be their actual convictions, it may be deliberate shit-stirring, in any case it’s not a net positive for the overall community, community needs common ground.

              Also those opinions could’ve been expressed in ways less… tendentious. Things like “incapable of self-governance” are ban-worthy bigotry on their own, at least in my book. Plenty to criticise about Iran, the actual people isn’t among it. Iranians by and large are vastly more sane and liberal than their government.

              Might that person have something valuable to contribute? Possibly. They should have done so instead of speedrunning a ban, then they could have contributed it. Probably a throwaway account anyway.

              • gcheliotis@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                23 days ago

                Yes I know, when all else fails it’s “what’s good for the community”. Oh well, thank you for bothering to make the case for the ban, I understand your points but really do wish more people saw that the splintering into ever more siloed “communities” where no one is seriously challenged (and consequently the lack of common spaces for exposure to radically different perspectives and the challenging of one’s own) is part of what’s wrong with the world right now.

                The more you hear your own views echoed back at you on a regular basis, the more shocking it becomes when you suddenly read something radically different and the harder it is for you then to come to any sort of rapprochement with the other. This is noticeable everywhere today, left and right, sadly also quite a lot in “liberal” spaces, leading many to think that liberals have become intolerant of anything other than the smell of their own farts. Where is this leading us? Nowhere good I think.

                So perhaps we should seek to challenge bans by default rather than find justification for them. I reflexively tend to scrutinize the censoring of posts and people for that reason. And do wish more ‘heretical’ viewpoints were allowed in here. It’s not like “neocon” (it’s in the name, so hardly a troll) expressed any fringe or criminally insane views or like he attacked other users. Ah anyway, why do I bother I do not know, it’s probably already too late. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to bring the world back from the brink of collapse. It is easier to let it slide.

                • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
                  2·
                  22 days ago

                  Don’t get me wrong if they had those opinions and also posted other things, generally engaged with the community, was a part of it, I would be much more critical of a ban: It’d be shutting down conversation, as you say. But giving that kind of leeway to people who are doing, essentially, drive-by shootings effectively also shuts down conversation: People aren’t going to engage in earnest with that kind of thing, that thing being allowed would set precedence and sooner than later everyone’s on motorcycles taking strafes at each other. Can’t talk to people who aren’t willing to sit down for a beer, can’t talk to people who don’t engage in good faith, can’t talk to people who come barging in with a megaphone in hand. Paradox of tolerance, Nazi bar, and all that. It’s much less of a fickle balance than many (especially US) liberals assume.

          • Paragone@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            20 days ago

            I’ve glanced at that, & … happen to agree with the guy, on some points…

            ( depends on interpretation:

            Iran being incapable of self-governance so long as the entrenched political-rot won’t allow any integrity into Iranian-governing … is hard fact, in my eyes… )

            I’m seeing only 13 identification-of-comments, they’re all removed, of course, so it isn’t possible to consider whether it was his-bias, community-bias, mod-bias, clusterfuck-of-misinterpretations, or some “special mixture” of these, together, that is the root-problem…

            Given how lets-all-pile-on-against-the-downvoted-guy is part of reddit & lemmy culture, as I’ve experienced, many a time,

            … the fact that someone got 200 downvotes isn’t itself proof of their wrongness or harmness…

            Their being blindly pro-Israel, … that I cannot agree with,

            & according to the elder rabbis who I’ve seen videos of, back when the Zionists 1st enacted laws setting-this-all-up, there was a prominent rabbi who spoke that something similar to fascism, or nazism, I forget which term he used, had just been enabled, & within 30 years it would produce its results…

            that has been borne out.

            Apparently he was the only rabbi with the massive clout to be able to speak that truth openly, at the time…

            & now … well, ideological-rabies is taking-over the entire world, with the help of social-cyber-warfare…

            To me there’s a problem that many are ignoring, & that is the problem of living in assumption & making-believing, until it’s terminally too-late,

            as the US Left did, in the last election, & Romania did, just after.

            EITHER you keep politically-inconvenient-truths in-your-face, XOR you remain “unconscious-at-the-wheel”, as the Left has proven its committment to doing, again & again & again…

            Because I’m not permitted to judge based on evidence, & am only told that the judging proves he had no place…

            I don’t consider that to be good-enough for me to side against him.

            I require to see, with my own eyes, evidence, before deciding that somebody actually is harmful, you know?

            shruggeth

            Whatever: maybe he was a troll, & maybe he was fed-up with ideological-idiots, & maybe it was a mixture of both, & maybe there is another dimension-of-explanation I’m not perceiving…

            but since evidence is what I’m not permitted to consider, then I have no right to judge, do I?

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