"There's a Higher Law That Calls Me"

Today, I sat down for an interview with an absolutely amazing Georgian woman, a protester who is proudly and loudly coming out to the streets every day after the rigged October 26, 2024 Parliamentary Elections. This is just a quick record of the most significant insights from the interview.

The woman is a linguist by training, a researcher and educator by profession, and a protestor by calling. She is proudly wearing the badges in Georgian with the protest milestones as a participant: 200 days of protest, 400 days of protest, 500 days of protest. Today (May 5, 2026) is the 524th day of protests.

The ruling party, pro-Russian Georgian Dream, has done everything it could to stop the protests, starting with dispersing the crowds with water cannons, arresting and beating the protesters, and ending with limiting the times and public spaces where people can protest. There's a great BBC documentary, the Fight for Georgia, for which the Georgian Dream is currently suing the BBC, that investigated the use of chemicals mixed with water in the water cannons used against the protestors:

Despite the harsh anti-protest measures, the protesters are still turning up. Every day, relentlessly. Some of them say that they go to the protests like it's their second job. My today's interviewee is one of them. I will refer to her as P (the Protester) for this story.

P has been arrested two times, most recently for violating the new law the ruling party introduced against the protestors that P describes as "ridiculous." It is the notorious "sidewalk law" banning the protestors from blocking the movement of pedestrians on Rustaveli Avenue, the main street where the Parliament sits and the protesters gather the most.

"I was arrested, with many others, for standing on the sidewalk," P says. "They let me go, but then they sent me a court subpoena. When I showed up for the hearing, the judge asked me if I understood that I'd violated the law. I replied that it was the new law that I didn't agree with, that it was aimed at shutting me down as a citizen, and I had the right to protest against this law. Besides, there is a higher law that calls me to act and guarantees my freedom to peaceful assembly and free speech - the Georgian Constitution."

"That judge really was missing the point, pretending that she was serving the law," P continues. "But it's like... I will violate the law if I break a window to get into someone's house to steal something vs. breaking the window in a burning house to save a child trapped in it. My country is on fire and as a citizen I must do something to stop it."

"How did the judge take it?" I ask, completely awed by the courage and conviction of this woman, a mother of nine children of about my age, sitting in front of me.

"They let me go that time, but the arrest stays on my record. It's one of their intimidation tactics, to have all of us carry the permanent arrest record. If I get arrested for the third time, I will be facing imprisonment for up to one year."

"But you still go out there to protest?" I ask to confirm.

"Of course, almost every day. It's a risk I'm willing to take. They can arrest me, put me in jail, but they cannot take away my desire to live in a free country and to protest something I believe is unjust and is taking my country deeper into authoritarian rule."

"How do you see this ending?" I ask.

"I know and believe that we will prevail. Georgia is too small of a country to build a strong authoritarian rule. They just don't have the resources to do it. If they arrest us all, where are they going to send us? To Siberia?"

I chuckle at the Siberia joke, and say, "But they did, in 1937, and earlier in the Russian imperial rule, send rebellious and dissident Georgians to Siberia, didn't they?"

"Yes, but at that time Georgia was a part of the Russian empire or the USSR. Now we are, thank God, an independent country. And we will do everything we can for it to stay that way."

Author's note: I've spent almost five hours talking with P about Georgian protests and global politics. I have a lot more material from the interview, but most of it is more academic and requires better and more careful contextualization and processing. I will keep it for an academic publication.