Following Russia’s example, the Georgian Parliament wants to contain “foreign influence” in civil society. Critics fear alignment with the Kremlin to the detriment of the West, which says it follows the case with “concern”. The advancement in Georgia of a controversial bill to contain “foreign influence” led this Thursday (02/05) tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Tbilisi on the third straight night of protests.
The text, which is about to be definitively approved by Parliament, determines that all organizations, media outlets and similar entities that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad register as “agents serving the interests of a power foreign”.
Demonstrations against the measure have been harshly repressed by the police for about a month. The law has already been voted on in two rounds in Parliament; If the third one passes, a signature from President Salome Zurabishvili will be enough for it to come into force.
Critics fear the country is following the example of neighboring Russia in clamping down on dissidents from the parliamentary government in Tbilisi, which is ideologically more aligned with Moscow. There, a similar initiative has been in place since 2012 and has resulted in the banning of several NGOs.
“An environmental organization that campaigns for nature conservation and receives a donation from a foreign partner will suddenly be considered to represent foreign interests. Or an independent media outlet that does not represent anyone’s interests,” says Marcel Röthig, director of the office regional office in the South Caucasus of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, linked to the SPD, the German social democratic party.
Law puts Georgia’s candidacy for the European Union at risk
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was concerned about the “disproportionate use of force” against protesters and the press, and called on the Georgian authorities to “fully respect and protect the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.” .
For Türk, “labeling NGOs and media outlets that receive foreign funding as ‘organizations acting in the interests of a foreign power’ constitutes a serious threat to the rights to freedom of expression and association.”
Both he and the European Parliament have called on the country’s leaders to back down from the law. MEPs also recommended that Georgia focus “its efforts on the reforms necessary for membership” of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Head of the European Commission’s enlargement directorate, Gert Jan Koopman, said the law undermines Georgia’s aspirations to one day join the European bloc and that the country has taken a “worrying” direction. “The law (…) is unacceptable and will create serious obstacles to accession to the EU,” he told journalists in Tbilisi.
American Ambassador to Georgia Robin Dunnigan struck a similar tone, saying the Georgian government’s choices “move the country away from its Euro-Atlantic future.” In the words of White House national security spokesman John Kirby, the United States is “deeply concerned” about the new legislation.
For the French Foreign Ministry, the text is “contrary to the founding values of the European Union and to which the Georgian people have shown themselves to be deeply attached”.
ra (AFP, Reuters, Lusa, AP, DW)
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