The IR community are increasingly alarmed by the deteriorating civil-society landscape in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Most recently, significant evidence has emerged that prohibited chemicals were activated against the protests of November-December 2024. One must begin with the caveat that we possess specific monitoring-organisations and legal-instruments to establish such violations. It has not been possible to engage these mechanisms (so far) in Georgia. Therefore, by implication, our observations cannot be based on meticulous forensic techniques and laboratory-sample-analysis. These are normally only at the disposal of bodies like the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW.) This is the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) which reports to the UN Security Council.

Nevertheless, interpreting “open-source” verified information, there is grave concern that the Georgian authorities are in breach of the CWC. Filmographic,  laboratory evidence and witnesses statements, acquired by a BBC Eye investigation, suggests the use of a WWI-Era chemical agent (bromobenzyl cyanide) also called “camite”. These events (further) scrutinized by the BBC Verification team suggest numerous toxic-discharges utilized against anti-government protesters in late 2024. Georgian officials claim these were legally-permitted crowd-control substances, and kicked-back against the BBC. It must also be stressed that the BBC does not have the specialist expertise of the OPCW.  However, BBC reportage collates narratives from whistleblowers, medical experts, victim testimonies, and army experts. The BBC investigation, published in November 2025, merges residue sampling with filmographic and “in-person” accounts. When these are combined with expert chemical and medical opinion; the symptomology is inconsistent with tear gas. It........

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