On February 26, 2021, the United Opposition held a protest rally demanding snap parliamentary elections and the release of Nika Melia. Participants of “March for Freedom” initially gathered at Tbilisi Concert Hall and then marched towards the parliament building.
Pro-government, anti-opposition Facebook pages and anti-liberal groups attempted to question the legitimacy of the protest by manipulating the number of protesters:
According to the Facebook page of the online edition “Marshalpress”, in total 2 000 people, including journalists, operators, and passersby, gathered in front of the parliament building on February 26.
As Asaval-Dasavali’s journalist Giorgi Gigauri assesses, a total of 3 000 people attended the protest rally organized by the opposition.
“Myth Detector” used the mapchecking.com tool to estimate the approximate number of participants at the protest rally on February 26 – the area occupied by protesters and the density of the crowd was determined based on the TV footages. With this estimation, the number of protesters approximately amounted to 11 449 people. The screenshot of Shalva Natelashvili’s post about 250 000 people attending the protest rally, disseminated by the Facebook pages “რეალობა” (Reality) and “პოლიტიკური სარკაზმი (Political Sarcasm), is fabricated.
How did pro-government actors, anti-opposition pages, and anti-liberal groups assess the February 26 protest rally?
Posts about the number of people at the February 26 protest rally was disseminated by the following pro-government Facebook pages: ტერენტი გლდანელი (Terenti Gldaneli) სექტა (Sect), პოლიტიკური სარკაზმი (Political Sarcasm), მიხეილ უკრაინოლოგი (Mikheil Ukrainologi), ალტერნატიული სარკაზმი (Alternative Sarcasm).
The photos by Political Sarcasm and Alternative Sarcasm don’t indicate when the photos were taken, presumably, the photos depict only a proportion of protesters gathered in front of the parliament building. One of the photos by Political Sarcasm has the logo of “Mtavarkhi Arkhi”, however “Mtavarki Arkhi” hasn’t disseminated the photo with this caption.
Pro-government pages რეალობა (Reality), პოლიტიკური სარკაზმი (Political Sarcasm) shared the fabricated screenshot of Shalva Natelashvili, leader of Labour Party. The screenshot depicts Shalva Natelashvili allegedly writing that 250 thousand people attended the protest rally. Such post cannot be found on Natelashvili’s Facebook. What’s more, the time indicated on the screenshot is February 23, when the protest rally was held on February 26.
Approximately how many people attended the February 26 protest rally?
The participants of “March for Freedom” held on February 26 first gathered at the Tbilisi Concert hall and then marched towards the parliament building. Marchers started to join the people gathered at the parliament building approximately from 14:00. “Mtavari Arkhi’s” live at 14:14 shows a densely crowded protest in front of the parliament building, it also shows citizens in front of the Tbilisi Classical Gymnasium.
The footage aired on “Imedi” TV’s main news bulletin “Kronika” shows a proportion of protesters occupying a part of April 9 street and a small area in front of the Georgian National Youth Palace, as well as Zakaria Chichinadze Street and an area in front of the Tbilisi Classical Gymnasium.
Moreover, footage aired on “Mtavari Arkhi” shows people standing in high-density across the speakers, directly in front of the parliament building, while density in the far left side of the parliament building is relatively low.
To estimate the approximate number of citizens at the protest rally, we used the crowd size estimation digital tool mapchecking.com. Mapchecking enables us to find the exact place via geolocation, select the area where the people were gathered and determine the crowd density. The aforesaid tool estimates the approximate number of people based on the given information.
Based on the footage aired on “Mtavari Arkhi” and “Imedi” TV, we’ve selected the area on the map, where the protesters were located at the February 26 protest rally.
Due to the fact that protesters were gathered at different densities in different areas, we divided the territory into two main parts – 1. Territory directly in front of the parliament building (excluding the far left side) and part of the area on Zakaria Chichinadze Street and in front of the First Classical Gymnasium. 2. Far left side of the parliament building and small territory on April 9 street and in front of the Georgian National Youth Palace.
To determine density, we used the resource on the Mapchecking web page, which shows static crowd density visuals.
Protesters were packed to the highest density directly in front of the parliament building, as well as on the Zakaria Chichinaze street and in front of the First Classical Gymnasium. We’ve assessed the density of those people to be 2 people per square meter, this area didn’t include the far left side of the parliament building, since, as the footage shows, the density on the left side is less than in the center. According to mapchecking, 8 554 people were packed on this territory.
As for the left side of the parliament building, small territory on April 9 street and in front of the Georgian National Youth Palace, here we’ve assessed the density to be 1.5 people per square meter and calculated 2 895 people.
We summed up these two numbers and calculated the approximate number of people at the February 26 protest rally – 11 449.
According to “Marshalpress”, the February 26 protest rally was attended by 2 000 in total, while Giorgi Gigauri said the number to be 3 000. The aforesaid numbers would’ve been true if the density of the people gathered in the area had been 0.35 and 0.50 people per square meter, which doesn’t correspond to the February 26 protest rally.
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