1000’s of individuals protested on Tuesday in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, in opposition to a plan to reintroduce a regulation that will permit the federal government to extra simply monitor NGOs and the media.
The ruling Georgian Dream occasion introduced final week it intends to carry again the invoice. It had been deserted final yr following widespread protests.
The regulation would require teams receiving greater than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as an “group pursuing the pursuits of a international energy.”
The earlier model of the regulation that was dropped in 2023 used the wording “agent of international affect.”
Georgian Dream stated that apart from the modification within the wording “all different sections of the draft regulation stay unchanged” in comparison with 2023.
Protesters denounce ‘Russian regulation’ amid geopolitical tensions
Neighboring Russia enacted an identical regulation in 2012 after which tightened the laws in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.
Critics of the federal government in Tbilisi see the Georgian invoice as a software of intimidation, with protesters calling it “the Russian regulation.”
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 in assist of the breakaway areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, making it broadly unpopular within the southern Caucasus nation.
Additionally on Tuesday, Europe’s prime rights court docket dominated Moscow violated a human rights constitution by serving to the 2 self-declared impartial republics arrange borders blocking motion into Tbilisi-controlled areas.
The regulation has additionally been criticized by the US and the European Union.
In November final yr, the EU issued an official advice to grant candidate standing to Georgia, which was confirmed one month later.
sdi/jsi (AFP, Reuters)
