Thousands of protesters rallied Tuesday in Georgia after parliament adopted a law to brand overseas-funded NGOs as groups under “foreign influence”, a measure Brussels has warned will undermine Tbilisi’s European aspirations.
Russia has used a similar law to silence public figures and organisations that disagree with or deviate from the Kremlin’s views. Georgian society is widely anti-Kremlin. Georgia’s bid for membership of the EU and NATO is enshrined in its constitution and—according to opinion polls—supported by a majority of the population.
EU politicians at the protests in Tbilisi threatening “severe consequences” for daring to curb foreign influence. Wow.
Not even curb really, just make transparent when NGOs are getting foreign funding.
Not even curb really, just make transparent when NGOs are getting foreign funding.
Problem being with the BILL , is that’s a copypaste Russian Law from Putins desk. And everyone saw what happened there when several 10th of thousands were arrested for protesting, ngos, newspapers were found illegal. Yip, democracic citizen etc were labelled as foreign influence, and handled as traitors . something like this doesn’t bode Well for freedom and democracies.
This is about a (pro Ruzz?) actors in Georgian Government pushing a Bill without any democratic support. Nobody wants it.
The US has the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is actually stricter. The “Russian law” shit is just framing. Countries have a right to know who’s meddling in their shit, in fact meddling is illegal under international law. The fact that they feel this threatened by a mere transparency law speaks volumes.
How would you like it if some politicans from other countries (let’s pretend it’s Russia since you seem very concerned about them) came to your capital and threatened “severe consequences” for even daring to want to monitor foreign influence. These protestors are basically demanding to surrender all sovereignty to EU/US/billionaire funded NGOs.
Imagine living in country where core government functions, like writing laws, regulation, and social services are provided by NGOs which are beholden to foreign donors. No oversight by any local authority and definitely not beholden to the people. This is about as far from democracy as you can get, this will ruin a place.
I think the point is different. It’s about whether Georgia adopts Ruzz/ Putins law or eventually, the EU law. Georgia has EU candidate status.
eu foreign bill But also this EU law is seen as a bit controversial still “It has been criticised by non-governmental organisations who fear it could be used to silence critical voices in the bloc.”