At around 7am on November 30, the number of demonstrators in Tbilisi, Georgia, had diminished by the time the police started charging. Zviad Maisachvili, a 23-year-old entrepreneur, ran towards the metro.

"There were terrible screams," he said. "The police were grabbing people and beating them." The young man was turning back when he felt a man jump on him. "Within seconds, there were five or six of them, their faces masked, beating me up from all sides." Zviad lost consciousness, but the police continued. One of them kicked him in the head when he was on the ground, inert. On the video captured by a witness, his long brown hair swayed from the impact.

The footage went viral and sparked outrage across the country. In just a few hours, the young man became a symbol of repression by the government, whose decision to suspend the European Union (EU) accession process on November 28, triggered a massive, leaderless protest movement. Today, Maisachvili has a broken nose, a concussion and multiple wounds on his body. Yet he said he is "doing better now than before the attack." "I had given up hope," he explained, his nose covered with a large bandage. "Now, I'm happy to see that, thanks to this video, people are waking up."

You have 80.03% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.