A man with a Georgian flag at a barricade near the parliament in Tbilisi during protests against the controversial law on foreign agents. According to critics, he will move Georgia towards an authoritarian regime modeled after Russia. 9 Mar 2023.
Tbilisi – Today, in the second reading, the Georgian Parliament voted against the draft law on so-called foreign agents. After days of large-scale protests in Tbilisi, he formally abandoned the disputed norm. Foreign press agencies reported on it. The government, under pressure from the demonstrations, announced on Thursday that it would withdraw from parliament a bill that would have required organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents under foreign influence”.
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During today's session of the parliament, 35 out of 36 voting deputies rejected the draft law, informs the TASS agency. Most of the 112 members of parliament present abstained, Reuters reported.
Lawmakers voted days after the ruling majority in parliament approved the norm in first reading. The move sparked huge protests, with tens of thousands of people protesting the bill in the streets of Tbilisi since Tuesday, according to media reports. Demonstrators feared the country's authoritarian trend following the example of Russia, where a similar law has been in place since 2012 and the authorities there are using it to suppress civil society and independent media.
Opponents of the bill also expressed concern that the standard would jeopardize Georgia's possible entry into the European Union and NATO. The authors of the draft law claimed that it is necessary for the transparency of the work of entities financed by representatives of foreign states. The law was supposed to ensure that organizations that get more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad register as “foreign influence agents” and submit to Justice Department review. Otherwise, they would face heavy fines.
According to press agencies, the police intervened harshly against the demonstrators, using, for example, tear gas or water cannons to disperse them. She arrested dozens of people during sometimes violent protests. On Thursday, the government backed down, announcing the withdrawal of the law and the release of more than a hundred people arrested during the protests. Nevertheless, demonstrations continued on Thursday and protesters demanded the formal repeal of the bill.
Critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party say the party is too close to Russia and that the country has drifted towards authoritarianism in recent years. After years of conflict with Russia over the Moscow-backed separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgian society is strongly anti-Moscow, which was also evident at demonstrations where some protesters chanted the slogan “No to Russian law!”.
On social media The video has been circulating on the networks since Tuesday, in which protesters, led by one woman, resist a water cannon with an EU flag. Georgia applied for EU membership last March. The EU – unlike Ukraine and Moldova – did not grant it the status of a candidate country last year, citing the necessary reforms.
The Georgian government has previously rejected comparisons with the Russian law, with lawmakers from the ruling Georgian Dream party claiming it is based on the US foreign agent registration rule, which applies primarily to lobbyists working directly for foreign governments, according to Reuters. Washington rejected the comparison. The bill was criticized in the West, and Brussels and Washington welcomed Georgia's decision to drop the bill, writes Reuters.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia has “absolutely nothing to do” with the proposed law on foreign agents. . However, according to him, the unrest in Georgia is worrying because it is important for Russia to have “peace on its borders”, the spokesman added. Today, according to Reuters, he made a similar statement, telling reporters that Moscow was watching the situation in the neighboring country with concern. Against the background of the situation in Georgia, there is a risk of provocations in relation to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Peskov said.
Peskov and also the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, claimed today, according to agencies, that the West is behind the protests in Georgia. The Russian foreign minister compared the events of the last few days in the Caucasian country to the protests on the Maidan in Kiev, which in 2014 led to the fall of the regime of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, and which Moscow calls a coup organized behind the West. The Kremlin spokesman pointed out that Georgian President Salome Zourabishvili visited the United States this week.
