Almost every day since last November, Gota Chanturia has taken part in a march to Georgia’s parliament to protest against his country’s increasingly repressive policies.

He is undeterred by mass arrests that have become a regular occurrence; police violence against the demonstrators; or more than $110,000 in fines that he says he owes the government for protesting.

“We’ve said that we will be here until the end, and we’re still here,” Chanturia, a civics teacher by profession, told the Associated Press at yet another march this week.

This wave of mass rallies was triggered last year by the Georgian government’s decision to halt the talks about the country’s accession to the European Union. The move came shortly after the country’s long-time ruling party, Georgian Dream, won an election the opposition alleged was rigged.

The rallies, big and small, continue to this day despite a ruthless, multi-pronged crackdown the authorities have unleashed in response, adopting a myriad of repressive laws and going after the demonstrators, rights groups and independent media alike.

Ketuna Kerashvili joined a rally in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Wednesday despite the rain – and despite the fact that the sweeping crackdown has affected her family. Her brother, a 30-year-old plastic surgeon Irakli Kerashvili, was arrested last December, convicted of disrupting public order — charges he and his lawyers have rejected as unfounded – and sentenced to two years in prison.

Kerashvili told AP her brother’s trial was “tough to watch.” “All of those boys and girls who are in prison now were trying to protect our country from pro-Russian forces and a pro-Russian government,” she said.

Between April 2024 and August 2025, at least 76 people have faced criminal prosecution in connection to the protests, according to Transparency International Georgia. More than 60 of them are currently behind bars.

Scores more have been slapped with a raft of steep fines. Chanturia said he was fined 56 times for allegedly blocking a road – one of the most common charges levied against protesters. He has not paid the fines and said he didn’t intend to, even though under new regulations failure to pay the fines might land him in jail.

The authorities froze bank accounts of seven rights groups as part of a probe into alleged sabotage. Georgia’s Prosecutor’s Office purported that the groups used their funds to provide demonstrators with protest gear such as masks, pepper spray, protective glasses etc., which was then used in violent clashes with police.

The organizations said the gear was intended for journalists covering the rallies and not for the demonstrators.

The clampdown drew comparisons to Georgia’s powerful neighbour and former imperial ruler Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has also taken steps to stifle dissent, and accusations that Georgian Dream was steering the country into Moscow’s orbit of influence.

AP video by Zura Muradov and Sophiko Megrelidze