Mr. Saakashvili’s government faced an enraged opposition and widespread unease about its actions. Reached by telephone shortly after the first police sweeps, Sozar Subari, the country’s human rights ombudsman, denounced the government’s use of force and suggested that Georgia, which had undertaken many reforms since 2003, had taken large steps backward.
“Georgia is now the same as Lukashenko’s Belarus,” he said, referring to President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the leader of a post-Soviet state that much of the West has labeled a dictatorship. A woman could be heard screaming in the background.
Mr. Subari later called the police action “illegal” and said that he himself had been beaten by the police. “Even after I declared that I am the ombudsman, they beat me more,” he said.
The United States, the Saakashvili government’s principal foreign sponsor and mentor, urged the two sides to sides to avoid any steps that might cause further bloodshed.. “Neither side, whether the government or the opposition, should take any steps that would be deliberately provocative to the other and could lead to violence,” said the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack