Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tbilisi on Wednesday March 8 against a controversial bill targeting the media and NGOs whose adoption at first reading by the Georgian assembly on Tuesday had already provoked clashes between opponents and police.
In the city center, flags of Georgia and the European Union (EU) were waved by the demonstrators, gathered in front of the national Parliament, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP). “No to Russian law!” chanted the crowd gathered at the call of several NGOs and opposition groups. This text provides that organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad are obliged to register as “foreign agents”, under penalty of fines.
According to its critics, this project is modeled on a law passed in Russia in 2012 and which the Kremlin has since used to repress the media and critical voices. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili called for the law to be “repealed”, promising to veto it. This veto could however be overcome by the ruling party, Georgian Dream, which controls more than half of the seats in Parliament.
Georgia, a former Soviet republic marked by a war against Russia in 2008, aims to join the EU and NATO. However, several recent government measures have cast doubt on these aspirations. “This law is absolutely unconstitutional and goes against the will of the Georgian people to become a member of the EU”, criticizes Badri Okoujava, a young historian of 26 years. “The ideology of this government is disconnected from that of Western civilization,” also laments Giorgi Labushidze, 33. “We will not allow them to make Russia define our future,” Elène Ksovréli, a 16-year-old girl, told AFP. The figures for the number of demonstrators given by the police and the opposition were not immediately available, however.
Earlier Wednesday, more than 1,000 protesters marched up the main avenue of Tbilisi, the capital of this small Caucasian country, to the Parliament building in the afternoon, on the occasion of the International Day of Human Rights. women.
Events from Tuesday
The passage of the “foreign agents” bill in the first reading had led to the gathering of thousands of opponents in Tbilisi as early as Tuesday evening, scattered protests with tear gas and water cannons. The Georgian Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that at least 77 people had been arrested and 50 police officers injured. According to this source, some of the demonstrators arrested “were carrying objects intended for violent actions”.
On Tuesday, the opposition Girch party said in a statement that its leader, Zurab Japaridze, was violently bludgeoned “in the jaw” by police during the protests, then arrested and detained. The chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobakhidze denounced the action of “radicals” and drew a parallel between these protests and the pro-European Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014.
“Ukraine, in the end, lost 20% of its territory” after this revolution, he claimed, referring to the Ukrainian territories conquered by Moscow since the annexation of Crimea and the Russian invasion of Ukraine of February 2022. According to Mr. Kobakhidze, the second and third reading of the text could however only take place in June, after the review of the draft law by the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe. .
In recent years, Georgian authorities have faced growing international criticism over an alleged rollback of democracy that has damaged Tbilisi’s ties with Brussels. Georgia applied for EU membership together with Ukraine and Moldova a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory on February 24, 2022. In June, the EU granted candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, but demanded that Georgia carry out several reforms before obtaining a similar status.
In a sign of growing concern among European countries, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Wednesday condemned the bill, calling it “incompatible” with EU values ??and the goal of joining the EU. European bloc.
