On the event date, Georgia saw one of the broadest business walkouts of its post-election protest wave, with hundreds of companies suspending work in a coordinated three-hour strike that stretched across central Tbilisi and beyond.
The action was framed as a political warning to the ruling Georgian Dream government. Businesses, universities, restaurants, offices, shops and larger companies joined the stoppage, while protest banners appeared early in the morning calling for public participation. The central demands were straightforward: release all imprisoned protesters and hold new elections.
The strike unfolded against a tense backdrop of street demonstrations and broader public anger over the direction of the country. At several locations in the capital, protesters gathered near Cafe Stamba by Rustaveli Metro station, Republic Square and Chavchavadze Avenue. The organizers and participants presented the walkout as a test of how much of the economy and civic life could be brought together behind a common political demand.
President Salome Zurabishvili publicly backed the action by joining demonstrators. Her remarks also signaled that the strike was part of a wider confrontation over state power and public dissent. According to the supplied report, she praised Georgians for their experience in confronting regimes and said attempts by the Georgian Dream government to provoke conflict among citizens would not succeed.
The country’s biggest banks, TBC Bank and Bank of Georgia, did not formally join the work stoppage, but the strike still reached employees inside those institutions. In the days before the action, Lika Guntsadze, mother of detained protester Andro Chichinadze, had met representatives of the two banks. They said they supported employees’ freedom of expression and the right to participate in protest, and they reiterated support for Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Some staff members nevertheless took part in the strike.
Other major companies signaled support in more limited ways. PSP, one of Georgia’s largest pharmaceutical businesses and pharmacy chains, joined symbolically with a five-minute strike. Its employees displayed banners demanding justice and new elections, while explaining that a longer stoppage was not possible because the company provides critical services.
Karvasla, a major trade and business center in Tbilisi, also took part. Its director, Zurab Vashakmadze, said the center hosts about 100 retail outlets and nearly 250 offices, and that the majority participated in the strike. The administration joined the action in solidarity.
The day was not limited to the strike itself. The report also noted an attack on protesters on Dolidze Street, where demonstrators were physically and verbally assaulted by assailants identified as thugs. Video of the incident spread quickly on social media, adding to the sense of instability around the protest movement.
The nationwide walkout followed another act of media protest the day before, when nearly 43 television channels and media outlets joined a separate strike over a court ruling that remanded Mzia Amaghlobeli, founder and director of Batumelebi/Netgazeti, into detention. Together, the two actions pointed to widening opposition in civil society, business and media as pressure on the government intensified.
For the ruling party, the strike mattered because it reached far beyond traditional street activists. It brought together private employers, cultural institutions and public-facing businesses in a single demand set, signaling that the dispute had moved deeper into ordinary economic life.
