Georgia’s ruling party announced on Thursday (March 9) the withdrawal of a controversial bill that has sparked hard-pressed massive protests in the Caucasus country over the past two days.
“As a party of government responsible to every member of society, we have decided to unconditionally withdraw this bill which we supported,” the Georgian Dream said in a statement posted on its website.
The announcement comes a day after massive protests in the capital, Tbilisi, saw police use tear gas canisters and water cannons to disperse tens of thousands of people gathered near parliament.
The protest movement was triggered by the adoption on Tuesday at first reading of a bill providing that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad are obliged to register as “foreign agents” or face significant fines.
For its critics, this text is inspired by a similar law that exists in Russia, where the Kremlin uses it to repress the independent press, human rights organizations and their opponents.
Political crisis
In its statement, the Georgian Dream party said the bill was “misrepresented in a bad light”, adding that it would launch public consultations to “better explain” the purpose of the text. The ruling party is not completely closing the door on a future return of the bill to parliament.
The protests that rocked Georgia on Tuesday and Wednesday are part of a broader context of political crisis in the Caucasus country. This former Soviet republic, marked by a Russian military intervention in 2008, officially aims to join the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a direction taken after the “Rose Revolution” of 2003 This revolution had brought to power the pro-Western Mikheïl Saakashvili, who is today in prison from where he denounces a political revenge.
But several recent moves by the current government, such as the “Foreign Agents” bill, have cast doubt on continued pro-Western aspirations, with the opposition accusing it of backing Moscow.
