Pro-Europeans take to the streets of Georgia after the halt to EU accession by a government aligned with Moscow

Thousands of pro-European Georgians took to the streets of the country again this Friday for a second night of protests, after the ruling party announced on Thursday that it would suspend EU accession negotiations until 2028, in an abrupt halt to an objective long-standing national

EU membership is hugely popular in Georgia, according to opinion polls, and the announcement prompted a crowd to gather outside the parliament building in Tbilisi on Thursday, where riot police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse them.

Again on Friday, thousands gathered outside the parliamentary headquarters, a fortress-like Soviet-style building, carrying EU and Georgian flags. Nearby were water cannons on standby, while police and special forces were deployed in large numbers.

Elene Khoshtarialeader of Georgia’s largest opposition party, the Coalition for Change, suffered a broken hand during Thursday’s crackdown, which he compared to police tactics in Russia and Belarus. Speaking to Reuters, with his arm in a sling, he said: “We are not going to give in, we are not going to give up. But I think the international community should think about how to support people who really believe in European values.”

The freeze in negotiations has sparked widespread anger in Georgia, a country that has the goal of EU membership written into its constitution.

Hundreds of active employees of the country’s ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Education and Justice signed open letters on Friday denouncing the freezing of talks as unconstitutional.

A number of private universities have announced the suspension of classes amid the unrest, while Business groups have asked the government to review its position.

The Georgian Dream party, which won almost 54% of the vote in an October election that opposition parties called fraudulent, declared on Thursday that it was freezing accession negotiations due to what it described as EU “blackmail.” towards Georgia.

The decision caps months of deteriorating relations between Georgia and the West, which has accused the Tbilisi government of authoritarian and pro-Russian leanings.

Georgian Dream this year passed laws against so-called “foreign agents” and LGBT rights, which critics call draconian and Russian-inspired.

The party, which is widely perceived to be controlled by its founder, billionaire and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, says it still wants to join the EU in the future and that the laws passed are necessary to defend Georgia’s traditional values. The EU ambassador to Georgia described Georgian Dream’s stance as “heartbreaking” on Friday and condemned the crackdown on protesters.