A man waves a Georgian national flag in front of a burning barricade as other protesters stand behind not far from the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, Thursday, March 9, 2023.
Police in Georgia's capital have fired water cannon and tear-gas to disperse demonstrators around the parliament building protesting a draft law aimed at curbing the influence of"foreign agents", among fears it could be used to silence oppositions. Tens of thousands of Georgians occupied their capital Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare for the second night in a row Wednesday night, holding E.U.
At the heart of the controversy is the Georgian parliament taking up two bills that would require nongovernmental organizations and media organizations to register as “agents of foreign influence” if 20% of their funds came from abroad; noncompliance would result in fines. The second “foreign agent” bill also included individuals and legal entities, with more severe penalties, including prison time.
Despite domestic and international calls to not go through with the bill, the Georgian Dream Party, which controls the government, passed the bill in its first hearing on Tuesday as citizens protested outside of the Parliament. “This protest is not just about law,” Vasil Matitaishvili, the campaign manager of the European Georgia, an opposition party, told Yahoo News. “It’s about the choice of every generation of Georgians and our identity. Western civilization, the free world is our home. This Putin-inspired law is an ugly finale of this government's persistent years-long trajectory.”
The ruling Georgian Dream government came to power in 2012 promising to normalize relations with Russia, and its electoral programthat Georgia should not serve as a point of confrontation between the West and Russia.
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