Judging Freedom - [SPECIAL] - Patrick Lancaster: LIVE from Tbilisi, Georgia.

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

[SPECIAL] - Patrick Lancaster: LIVE from Tbilisi, Georgia.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Thanks for watching! Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, December 10, 2024. At least it's Tuesday, December 10, where we are. Patrick Lancaster joins us now from Tbilisi, Georgia, where it is already tomorrow. Patrick, welcome here. I know you're in a dangerous hotspot. Thank you very much for joining us. Even if it is the last minute, you know you're always welcome here. Why are you in Georgia and what's going on there? Hi, Judge. Great to be on again. Thanks for having me as normal. It's always great to be able to show the world some things with you that they need to see. So I'm here in Tbilisi to cover the new events that's been happening for the last 13 days. Today is the 13th day of unrest

slash protests. And basically, 13 days ago, the Prime Minister, who is part of the The longstanding Georgia Dream Party that's been in power for 12 years made an announcement saying that Georgia was pulling back from the accession talks of the young population of Tbilisi and Georgia organized some protests, daily protests, which in the early days quickly turned violent with many clashes between the protesters and police, which resulted in dozens injured on both sides, the police and the protesters. The protesters accused the police of police brutality and the international response to the actions by the government side were mixed. Of course, the European media and European countries condemned some of the, what they called, harsh actions by the government towards the protesters. And the Russian authorities chimed in saying that, particularly Dmitry Medvedev said that the protests were somewhat of a revolution that was doomed to fail.

And the Minister of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said that Russia is up for regaining our increasing relations with Georgia as far as Georgia wants to take it. And I arrived here in Tbilisi on the seventh day of the unrest and protests. And the first two days I was here, which was six days ago, was fairly quiet. Lots of people. I'm not sure exactly how many. Tens of thousands, for sure. Right in the middle of the city in front of the parliament building. That's like the main place where the protests are, directly in front of the parliament

building. And as I said, the first two days were calm, mainly calm. Some fireworks being fired by the protesters above the parliament building and even on the Parliament building, but no response from the police and authorities. On Friday night, it was a bit different. The protesters turned their large fireworks or pyrotechnics on the building of parliament itself and on the police lines themselves. All right. We have some clips that you gave us of the unrest. We'll show it in a minute. But just so we understand the competing forces here, the government is popularly elected? Yes. Okay. And the government has decided that it's either going to align itself with Russia or remain neutral, but it's not going to align itself with the EU. Is that a fair understanding of what was announced by the prime minister?

Actually, the prime minister said he was delaying the accession talks, not necessarily turning his back on the EU, but delaying the accession talks for three more years. Now the accession into the EU, or at least attempted accession, is actually in the Georgian Constitution, so they can't really say it's not gonna happen. And as far as the democratically elected parts of these authorities, now, there was an election October 26th, which to me, from what people have told me, seems that it was viewed by the larger population of the country as fair elections. Now, the protesters said that it was not fair elections, and that's one of the things that they're also going for is new elections. And has, I know that in one of these clips, the second one, where they confront you,

they accuse you of being a Putin apologist. We're not ready to run it yet, but has President Putin or has the Kremlin taken sides in all of this? Well, in a way, yes, just by saying the protests are doomed to fail, the revolution doomed to fail, but they're kind of riding a center line, not really getting their nose in too much. But the protesters say that it's going to lead to war with Russia and all this. There's many accusations by the protests against Russia using the Ukraine war as ammunition, basically. And the older population I spoke to don't want to see Georgia turn into the second Ukraine, as they put it. So it's a very complicated situation. Got it. Now, again, before we show the fireworks and the unrest, why are you there? Why have you left Ukraine or the Russian

areas that Ukraine says are Ukraine and Russia says are Russia? Why have you left there? Because I saw this developing story and I felt like there was so much information coming out to the Western media that I had to go give a little on the ground view for my viewers on what was really happening, what I would, I stuck with the protesters to give them, you know, a chance to show my viewers what their side was, and then slowly moved on to speaking to other people away from the protesters. And of course, everything is on my channel. Nothing I say isn't backed up by video evidence. Okay, we're going to show the tape you sent us of the unrest, and I'm assuming that the building at which they're hurling Roman candles and fireworks is the Parliament building in that tape. Right now, the... One, two, three... I thought that was going to be... ...the reaction by the police. I'm Patrick Lancaster right now

in the center of Tennessee on the ninth night of unrest and the protests are turning, what you could say, violence again at this point. Pyrotechnics are being shot at direct fire on the Parliament building and the police have tapered off, and now they're on the firewoods. How does this end, Patrick? Does everybody just stop and go home or do the police arrest people? Well, basically, right after the moment of that clip, well, not right after, but I'd say it went on for another half an hour to an hour in front of the parliament there.

To answer your question before the clip, yes, that was the parliament building being directly fired upon. And a bit later, the police moved forward and started slowly pushing the protesters back and the protesters changed from firing just on the main front of the building where there were some SWAT there to actually firing on the police lines and the police deployed water cannons and then soon a gas grenades tear gas grenades which are fairly effective. But even still, that particular riot went on at least three more hours, going down and farther away from the street. And then what we're told is as the riots themselves taper off, then the police go down and arrest people individually,

and people were arrested during it. While it's happening, I filmed as much as I could for my channel. I myself got gassed several times, and it's very effective tear gas, I can say. But right now... Have you come across any other Americans in these demonstrations? A lot of the viewers are asking if this has been fomented by the CIA, sort of like in Ukraine in 2014. Did you come across Americans, whether they appeared to be agents or just Americans, American tourists? Well, I there's English being spoken on the protests themselves, but I cannot confirm a large

population or a large part of the protest is being foreigners at all. Several of the locals that I talked to outside of the protest did say there was foreigners involved. Um, but I can't confirm international, uh, operations going on inside of it. I just, you know, what I see is what I see. So, yeah, but what I can tell you about the protesters is that the majority of the protesters were younger generation, seeming between late teens, maybe 15 to 25 or 30, the majority of the protesters. Of course,

we noticed an American flag amongst the protesters. Did that surprise you? Well, there is several American flags, several Ukrainian flags, a lot of European Union flags, of course, Georgian flags and NATO flags. And one, there's a lot of graffiti around the area. Now, it was not overwhelming at first. The first night we just saw a few here and there in the following nights, but there are some far-right emblems like the swastika. I think we only saw a total of three swastikas on some of the graffiti around the area, a few Azov battalion symbols and things like this.

But, yeah, a lot of non-Georgian flags and symbology, a lot of graffiti saying we are Europe. Apparently your work has become well known to the demonstrators. We're now going to play a tape where the demonstrators confront you and accuse you of being a Putin apologist and in a threatening way suggest that you should get the hell out of there and go back to your hotel room. This is about two and a half minutes long. It's a little unsettling, but it's a very courageous and unmoved Patrick Lancaster. Why are you following us? Freedom of speech, please leave us alone. Freedom of speech is Patrick Lancaster. Go home, please. I know who are you. You are not a journalist. What you make is not journalism. It's not journalism.

It is European. I know who are you. Now, now, now. In this place, you make provocation. No, I don't. Go home. Boss in Abkhazia. It's not normal for Georgia. So now we are being surrounded.

Fuck Russia. Go home, please. Go home. This is only freedom of speech. I'm just a journalist that only shows the facts. Go home. Go to your hotel, please. Why do you not believe the journalists should be able to? Go home.

I'm from the United States. Ah, understood. But I work just because I show what the Western mainstream media won't show. Go to your hotel. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home.

Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home. I work just just because I show what the Western mainstream media won't show go go go to your go to your why can't I work free as a journalist here to your hotel please Georgia is a wonderful country and people should be able to work here Ukraine is a wonderful country too why why do you be in Donbass and uh

what do you think about Putin What do you think about Putin? What do you think about Putin? About war in Ukraine? About war in Georgia? You can see in my reports. I show exactly what's happened. I never show my opinions in any of my reports. I only show the facts on the ground.

The facts. We see your report. Go to your hotel, please. I want to work free here. This is a free country and a good country. Go to your... You are propagandist. You are pro-Russian propagandist. Putin is raw! Putin is raw! Putin is raw!

Putin is raw! Putin is raw! Putin is raw! I gather they didn't succeed in silencing you, Patrick. No, we were just on scene for today's protest just about an hour ago, which is considerably less than it had been in the last days. And what do you think that was all about and who were they and why are they upset that you're filming these demonstrations? Well, in the day prior to that encounter over the weekend,

some pro-opposition journalists and other people put out my photos and information because they said that they saw my reports and basically put the protesters on alert that I was there and that I should be escorted or whatever out of the protest. Now, I can say they didn't get very violent, of course, as you saw, aggressive, but a little pushing here and there, grabbing, but, you know, no punches thrown or any weapons of any kind used. And, you know, to that, I could say that it was good to see that, just like on the police side during this night of protests or unrest on Friday, we saw a lot of, you know, the police using restraint. They were only deploying the water cannons and tear gas when they were being directly fired upon with these large fireworks or pyrotechnics. So yeah, basically since the encounter, the opposition or pro-opposition have been putting out photos of myself and actually another journalist, an Italian journalist

who also works in Donbass and targeting him as well. And it's to the point where when I go to the protest, besides what I'm doing as Lives, I wear a mask now. And in addition to that, there was another British journalist with us who they also, without even looking at any work or anything like that of his, labeled him as a Russian media, without any facts at all, put out information with his photos saying he was part of Russian media, particularly the RIA news, Russian media outlet. And also they put out statements saying that Mayan, the Italian journalists, were putting out information lying about the protesters, lying about Georgia. And it's just absolutely untrue without any basis whatsoever. They use words to lie. And I use the video to show what's happening.

Everything I say is whatever. How much longer are you going to stay there, Patrick? Not that much longer are you going to stay there, Patrick? Not that much longer. I feel like I've done my part to show what's happening. As I said, this is the sixth day. I'm working on a couple other reports right now, talking to lawyers, possibly businessmen, and hopefully some political figures soon. So a little bit of information more coming out from my various channels. But soon I'll be headed out of here and back to the Russian-Ukraine war zone

to be showing what's happening there. But if things develop farther here, possibly I'll come back. On the 14th, the acting, or not the acting, but the president of Georgia, who is pro-opposition, is supposed to leave office. Well, the election, the parliamentary election for the president is on the 14th, I believe. She's supposed to leave office, but she says she's going to refuse to. So when that happens, I would expect some sort of an escalation. There will be more fireworks. Patrick, thank you very much for your time. Stay well, stay safe, and keep us informed of your progress. All the best, my dear friend.

Thanks, Judge. Well, you never know what he's going to show us. Coming up at 5 o'clock today, back on Syria, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.