82 members of the Russian list of so-called foreign agents called on the Georgian parliament not to adopt a law on foreign agents. They call this status “civil death.” Pavel Chikov, the head of the Agora human rights group, announced this on March 9 in a telegram.
Among the signatories of the appeal are musicians and artists Andrei Makarevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Tatyana Lazareva, Mikhail Shats, journalists Yevgenia Albats and Karen Shainyan, political scientist Ekaterina Shulman, producer Alexander Rodnyansky and gallery owner Marat Gelman, Chikov reports.
“We are appealing to clarify the operation of this law in Russia from sudden inspections of non-profit organizations in 2012 to the almost complete destruction of civil society by 2023. We are doing this so that such laws are not adopted either in Georgia or anywhere else. was,” the text says. The authors note that in Russia it is now almost impossible to continue “meaningful social activities.”
On March 7, 76 out of 150 deputies of the Georgian parliament voted for the adoption of the draft law “On the transparency of foreign influence.” The document assumes that non-profit legal entities and the media will receive the status of agents of foreign influence if more than 20 percent of their income comes from abroad.
Representatives of the Georgian opposition, non-governmental organizations, journalists, leaders of the EU and the US states that the Georgian authorities want to adopt the Russian experience of fighting “foreign agents” and create a repressive mechanism in the country.
On March 9, the ruling Georgian Dream party and the pro-government Strength of the People faction said they planned to withdraw the bill. The opposition notes that this is procedurally impossible – the document must be put to a vote and rejected.
