Protests continue across Georgia for third night after EU accession talks suspension

Protesters have gathered across Georgia for a third consecutive night of demonstrations against the government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union.

More than 100 demonstrators were arrested as crowds clashed with police Friday night, the country’s Interior Ministry said.

On the same night, police also used heavy force against members of the media and deployed water cannons to push protesters back along the capital’s central boulevard, Rustaveli Avenue.

Some media outlets reported seeing protesters being chased and beaten by police as demonstrators rallied in front of the country’s parliament building.

The ruling Georgian Dream party's disputed victory in the country’s 26 October parliamentary elections, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia's aspirations to join the EU, has sparked major demonstrations and led to an opposition boycott of the parliament.

In an interview with Euronews, Georgia's President Salome Zourabichvili said the scale of the protests was unprecedented because they have spread beyond the capital, Tbilisi.

"Every day there are more people on the streets. And more importantly, there is real dissent growing in the country. In the state institutions, where people are resigning, or protesting, or signing petitions, depending on which institution we are talking about," she said.

She also slammed the current government, headed by the populist Georgian Dream party, as "illegitimate".

"They are not recognised by anyone. They have not been recognised by the Georgian population, in the first place. They have not been recognised by the political forces in the country, because no opposition party has recognised them as winning these partly rigged elections and nobody has entered the