A few hours after the start of the examination in Parliament of a controversial bill on “foreign agents”, which had already provoked large-scale demonstrations in 2023, several thousand demonstrators gathered on Tuesday April 16 in the evening in Tbilisi, Georgia.

“No to Russian law,” chanted several thousand protesters gathered in the center of the capital, gathered in front of Parliament. The crowd thus blocked one of the main arteries of the city, while the riot police secured the entrances to the building, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse The opponents of the text, at the origin of the gathering, consider the text liberticidal and comparable to Russian legislation used by the Kremlin for years to persecute dissident voices.

The deputies began studying the text at first reading on Tuesday, without voting at the end of the day. The ruling Georgian Dream party, which has a majority in Parliament, should be able to pass it.

The law will “keep Georgia away from the EU”, according to Brussels

If adopted, the text provides that organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad would be obliged to register as an “organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power”, under penalty of ‘fines. The government assures that this law will bring more “transparency” in the financing of organizations, but its critics fear that it will be used as a tool of repression against NGOs and independent media.

On Monday evening, around 10,000 people had already demonstrated against this bill, with police making fourteen arrests during this rally. The deputies of the power and the opposition in Georgia came to blows on Monday during an exchange on the text, provoking a general fight in the hemicycle.

The European Union (EU), which Georgia aims to join, has called for the text to be abandoned, saying it goes against the reform program that the country must undertake to progress on the path to membership. . The current bill “will move Georgia away from the EU instead of bringing it closer,” European Council President Charles Michel said on Tuesday on X.

A first version of the bill was abandoned in March 2023 after massive protest demonstrations which were dispersed by police with tear gas and water cannons.