Poor vegans. They get a raw deal, sometimes literally.
Take these innocent patrons at a vegan cafe in the capital city of Tbilisi, Georgia. Diners at the Kiwi Cafe were downing spelt pasta, lentil soups and whatever other weird foods vegans actually enjoy when a group of rowdy men brandishing slabs of meat on skewers and sporting sausage necklaces invaded the restaurant and instigated an all-out brawl with staff members.
A statement released by the cafe relayed the invasion.
“They pulled out some grilled meat, sausages, and fish and started eating them and throwing them at us, and finally they started to smoke…. They were just trying to provoke our friends and disrespect us.”
Witnesses said cafe workers tried to calm the men down and asked them to leave once they started smoking in designated no smoking zones before the men began attacking them. Thankfully, only minor injuries were reported but the group of protesters fled the scene before police arrived.
What makes this situation even worse is the fact that, though the men singled out a vegan cafe, they weren’t just targeting people who prefer plant-based diets.
The cafe’s Facebook page called the extremists “neo-Nazis” who support “fascist” ideas. Apparently, the group had been casing the neighborhood, asking business owners if foreigners or members of the LGBTQ community frequented the cafe. The Kiwi Cafe is known as a counter-culture space that accepts patrons regardless of their race, nationality or sexual preference which might not sit well with groups of Georgians who have been calling for a resurgence of discriminatory nationalistic policies that were first implemented by President Zviad Gamsakhurdia when the state broke free of Soviet rule. Just three days earlier, a group of protesters marched the streets of the capital, chanting “Georgians for Georgia,” an obvious play on the phrase “Georgia for Georgians,” a tagline that was used years ago to promote the idea of ethnic purity in the country.
On the day of the attack, English-language episodes of Rick & Morty were scheduled to be screened — and now it’s become a battleground for the fight between those who wish the country to be inclusive and accepting and those with xenophobic ultra-nationalist ideas.
(Via RFERL)