Hand-held flares sent plumes of smoke into the twilight sky above the grand arched facade of Tbilisi's old parliament building on Saturday night, as the Georgian capital's main boulevard erupted into a carnival of dissent.
Fierce techno riffs blasted out from a soundsystem on the steps of the state building as several thousand ravers raised their arms and cheered in jubilant defiance after armed police raids on two of Tbilisi's most celebrated clubs hours earlier, which they saw as an attack on their generation and their culture.
Placards urged tolerance and denounced repression. “We don't want another P*tin here,” one declared. Another had a message for the authorities who ordered the operation: “Our love is louder than your fear.”
Earlier on Saturday, at around 1am, interior ministry special police units carrying automatic weapons had raided Bassiani and Cafe Gallery, two clubs at the centre of the explosion of techno culture in Tbilisi in recent years. Eight alleged dealers were arrested in a showpiece anti-narcotics operation, after the deaths in recent weeks of at least five young people who are believed to have taken drugs while out clubbing.
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