Thousands protest in front of the Georgian Parliament over the controversial foreign agent law

April 15 () –

Thousands of people took to the streets this Monday to protest in front of the Georgian Parliament against the foreign agents law promoted by the government Georgian Dream party, a controversial project that has already sparked waves of demonstrations in the past.

Despite the fact that the leader of Georgian Dream in Parliament, Mamuka Mdinaradze, has detailed that the expression “agent of foreign influence” has been replaced to adopt that of “organization that defends the interests of a foreign power”, the critical voices that They consider the Russian court project to have once again called for protests in various parts of the country.

Thus, the protesters have called another march at 7:00 p.m. (local time) to try to once again block the legislation, which in March 2023 was approved in a first reading in the Chamber, but ended up being withdrawn due to the overwhelming rejection of the Georgian population.

This project requires all organizations, media outlets and similar entities that receive at least 20 percent of their financing from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”, a measure similar to those in force in Russia and that, according to groups of defense of Human Rights, undermine fundamental freedoms.

The text of the bill is now the same as in 2023, although with some modifications. However, last year the opposition and part of society demonstrated against this legislative proposal for being a show of sympathy with Russia. The Government, for its part, rejected these accusations and defended that the proposal would simply serve to have a list of organizations financed from abroad.

On the other hand, the president of Georgia, Salomé Zurabishvili, has condemned this decision by the government party, whom she has accused of trying to sabotage the country's European aspirations with a legislative proposal that, according to her and the entire opposition, is closer to Moscow.