Georgian Parliament Speaker calls on Brussels to take EU human rights situation “seriously”, citing protest crackdowns in Europe

Georgian Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday urged officials in Brussels to take the state of human rights within the European Union more seriously, warning that freedom of expression in the bloc is deteriorating.

In his remarks, Papuashvili referred to the dispersal of a protest in Copenhagen, stating that the situation reflects a broader pattern across Europe. He further argued that similar incidents have been observed in Berlin and Paris during the breakup of peaceful demonstrations.

Papuashvili also noted that Denmark has a history of human rights violations, citing the events that occurred in Greenland - the forced sterilisation of the population and the social experiment of abducting children from families - as an example.

“It is regrettable when representatives from such a country then talk to others about any standards. And finally, we must free ourselves from the complexes that for years they have tried to force upon the Georgian people, as if we are a second-rate nation, an underdeveloped nation, as if Denmark or Germany should teach us what a proper life is, what proper Europeanhood is, or how to properly build a country. We can teach everyone else what Europeanhood and human rights mean, so we must shake off this externally forced complex that we are somehow students and have representatives of certain countries as our homeroom teachers - countries that have committed crimes equated to genocide against their own population, and to this day, have not investigated these matters, and no one has been punished”, he concluded.