In the procession against the passage of the law against “foreign agents” in Tbilisi, Georgia, March 8, 2023. ZURAB TSERTSVADZE / AP
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tbilisi on Wednesday, March 8, against a controversial law targeting media and NGOs, the approval of which at first reading by the Georgian assembly on Tuesday had already sparked clashes between opponents and police.
In the city center, flags of Georgia and the European Union (EU) were waved by protesters who had gathered in front of the national parliament, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP). “No to the Russian law! chanted the crowd that had gathered at the call of several NGOs and opposition groups. This text stipulates that organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad are obliged To as “foreign agents” under penalty of fines.
According to critics, the model for this project is a law passed in Russia in 2012, which the Kremlin has used to suppress the media and critical voices ever since. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili called for the law to be “repealed” and promised to veto it. However, this could be overcome by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which controls more than half of the seats in Parliament.
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Georgia, a former Soviet republic marred by a war against Russia in 2008, is aspiring to join the EU and NATO. However, these efforts have been challenged by several recent government actions. “This law is absolutely unconstitutional and contradicts the will of the Georgian people to become a member of the EU,” said Badri Okoujava, a young 26-year-old historian. “The ideology of this government is separate from that of western civilization,” said Giorgi Labouchidzé, 33, with regret. “We will not let Russia determine our future,” Elène Ksovréli, a 16-year-old girl, told AFP. However, police and opposition figures on the number of protesters were not immediately available.
Earlier on Wednesday, more than 1,000 protesters walked up the main street of Tbilisi, the capital of this small Caucasian country, towards the parliament building to mark International Human Rights Day in the afternoon.
Events from Tuesday
The first reading of the bill on “foreign agents” led to a gathering of thousands of opponents in Tbilisi on Tuesday evening, and protests were broken up with tear gas and water cannons. The Interior Ministry of Georgia said on Wednesday that at least 77 people had been arrested and fifty police officers injured. According to this source, some of the arrested protesters were “carrying items intended for violent action.”
On Tuesday, the opposition Girch party said in a statement that its leader Zurab Japaridze was violently punched “in the jaw” by police during the protests, then arrested and detained. The leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobachidze, condemned the actions of the “radicals” and drew a parallel between these protests and the pro-European Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014.
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“Ukraine ended up losing 20% of its territory,” he said after that revolution, referring to the regions conquered by Moscow since the annexation of Crimea and the Russian invasion in February 2022. However, the third reading of the text could not come until June take place after the draft law had been examined by the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe.
In recent years, the Georgian authorities have faced growing international criticism over an alleged retreat from democracy that has damaged Tbilisi’s ties with Brussels. Georgia applied for the EU along with Ukraine and Moldova a few days after Russia invaded Ukrainian territory on February 24, 2022. In June, the EU granted candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, but asked Georgia to implement several reforms before being granted similar status.
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In a sign of growing concern from European countries, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, on Wednesday condemned the bill, saying it was “incompatible” with EU values and the goal of joining the European bloc.