Clashes broke out at a demonstration aimed at ousting Georgia's Western-backed President Mikheil Saakashvili on Sunday, with protesters attacking cars and police firing rubber bullets and tear gas.
Protesters held an all-night vigil outside the Georgian public television studios in Tbilisi after some 6,000 people rallied on Saturday, accusing Saakashvili of authoritarianism and calling for him to resign.
Police used rubber bullets and tear gas after activists attacked a police car with sticks early Sunday morning, smashing the windows and beating the officers inside, accusing them of trying to kidnap a protest organiser.
"Police were forced to use rubber bullets to defend peaceful citizens," interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.
There was a second clash when protesters wielding sticks and improvised shields again attacked cars which they suspected of carrying undercover officers.
Opposition leader Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker in the Saakashvili government, said that a "revolution" had started in the ex-Soviet state. "The authorities' actions have provoked the start of the revolution," Burjanadze told.
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