Page 8 - GEORptNov21

2.2 Saakashvili gets blood transfusion
Thousands rally in Tbilisi in support for jailed ex-president Saakashvili
Jailed former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike, was given a blood transfusion late on October 22 and is in stable condition, Interfax news agency quoted his personal doctor as saying.
The pro-Western politician, who declared a hunger strike on October 1, was arrested after returning to Georgia, having lived abroad for years.
He faces up to six years in jail after being convicted in absentia in 2018 of abuse of power and concealing evidence when he was president, charges he rejects as politically motivated.
"One of the parameters of Saakashvili's blood test was bad, so local prison doctors and an emergency ambulance team helped me with the transfusion and after that Saakashvili's condition stabilised," Nikoloz Kipshidze, Saakashvili's doctor, was quoted as saying by Interfax.
The 53-year-old Saakashvili led the Rose Revolution in 2003 that ousted veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze. Saakashvili ruled as president from 2004 to 2013 before leaving the country and building a new political career in Ukraine.
He was arrested and jailed on October 1 after returning home on the eve of parliamentary elections to rally the opposition and "take part in saving Georgia".
Thousands of people gathered in the centre of the Georgian capital demanding the release of jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose detention earlier this month deepened a protracted political crisis in the South Caucasus country.
Shouting slogans such as “Free Misha” and waving national flags, the protesters filled Tbilisi’s Freedom Square and the city’s main thoroughfare, Rustaveli Avenue, in the evening of October 14.
In an address read out by his lawyer Nika Gvaramia to the protesters, Saakashvili said he had come back to Georgia to “contribute to the struggle of the Georgian people against poverty, corruption, injustice, destruction”.
He also called for the government linked to billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, to be "defeated" and for Georgia to return to its pro-Western path.
Ahead of the demonstration, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili told journalists that "inmate Saakashvili's sole goal is to stir up destabilisation and upheaval in the country".
8 GEORGIA Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com