A political scandal has intensified in Georgia over the dispersal of pro-European protests in Tbilisi after a BBC investigation suggested that dangerous chemical agents may have been used against demonstrators. The controversy centers on the events of November and December 2024, when police forcefully broke up mass rallies that began after the government decided to pause talks on the country’s accession to the European Union.
The BBC report said the Interior Ministry’s arsenal may have included camite, or bromobenzyl cyanide, and cited a document with chemical codes allegedly obtained from ministry sources. The publication was accompanied by testimonies from victims, information from doctors, and footage of the crackdown, during which water cannons, pepper spray, and beatings of detainees were reported.
At first, representatives of Georgian Dream dismissed the investigation as false and provocative. Then former Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said the substance mentioned could indeed have been held by the ministry and had been purchased in 2009 or 2010, during the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili. The next day, current Interior Minister Geka Geladze contradicted that account, saying the ministry had never bought camite.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze later acknowledged that something had in fact been added to the water in the cannons and promised an investigation. On the sixth day after the BBC publication, the State Security Service said police had used a form of CS tear gas diluted in propylene glycol on December 4 and 5, 2024. It did not provide laboratory findings, however, showing only photographs of a container, while critics noted that no clear explanation was given for the other days of the crackdown.
The issue immediately revived memories of April 9, 1989, when Soviet troops dispersed a rally in Tbilisi using gas, leaving 21 people dead. New demonstrations have featured slogans demanding that the authorities reveal what substance was used against protesters. Human rights advocates say the government has shown little concern for the health of the hundreds affected and has instead threatened BBC sources with prosecution for assisting a foreign organization in hostile activity.
International bodies have also become involved. Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty, in a letter to Georgia’s prosecutor general, recalled that in January 2025 Deputy Interior Minister Aleksandre Darakhvelidze had assured him that nothing had been added to the water cannons. After later admissions by Georgian officials, O'Flaherty said he intended to seek accountability. UN Special Rapporteur on torture Alice Jill Edwards also questioned whether the government could credibly investigate itself and called for an international mechanism.
Shota Gvineria, Georgia’s former representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said that any complaint to the OPCW would require not political appeals but properly collected materials and laboratory evidence. According to him, if verified proof of chemical weapons use emerges, the organization would be able to send a fact-finding mission to the site.