Georgian parliament withdraws controversial ‘foreign agents’ bill amid mass protests
Georgian lawmakers announced Thursday that they’ve decided to withdraw the draft law “On transparency of foreign influence,” which sparked mass protests earlier this week.
The Georgian TV network Rustavi 2 published the ruling parliamentary coalition’s statement:
We see that the adopted bill has caused controversy in society. The machine of lies managed to present the bill in a negative light and mislead a certain segment of the population. The false label ‘Russian law’ was affixed to the bill, and its passage in the first reading was presented in the eyes of part of the public as a shift away from [Georgia’s] European course. In addition, radical forces managed to draw a portion of the youth into unlawful activity.
Protests against proposed laws to establish a “foreign agents” registry in Georgia have been going on for multiple days. Two versions of the draft legislation were submitted to parliament. On March 7, lawmakers voted in the first reading to pass a version titled “On transparency of foreign influence,” which would require all non-commercial legal entities and media agencies that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents.” On March 9, parliament planned to vote on the bill’s other version, which would make it possible for any individual or legal entity that receives any funding from abroad to be named an “agent of foreign influence.”