Georgia's Foreign Agents bill sparks accusations of Russian influence

Georgian security forces clashed with protesters outside parliament late on Tuesday after lawmakers debated a foreign agents bill, which is viewed as authoritarian and Russian-inspired by the opposition and Western nations.

Riot police used pepper spray and batons to clear some protesters who were trying to prevent lawmakers from leaving the back entrance of the parliament building in Tbilisi. Some protesters shouted "Russians" at police.

The bill has deepened divisions in the deeply polarised southern Caucasus country, setting the ruling Georgian Dream Party against a protest movement backed by opposition groups, civil society, celebrities and Georgia's figurehead president.

Parliament, which is controlled by the Georgian Dream and its allies, is likely to approve the bill, which must pass two more readings before becoming law. Lawmakers ended Tuesday's session without a vote and the debate will resume on Wednesday.

The bill would require organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents".

Additionally, Georgian critics have labeled the bill "the Russian law," comparing it to Moscow's "foreign agent" legislation, which has been used to crack down on dissent there.

Russia is criticized by many Georgians for its support of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia lost a brief war with Russia in 2008.

The United States, Britain, and the European Union, which granted Georgia candidate status in December, have criticized the bill. EU officials have stated it could halt Georgia's progress towards integration with the bloc.

Tina Khidasheli, who served as Georgian Defence Minister in a Georgian Dream-led government in 2015-2016, attended Tuesday's protest against her former government colleagues and said she expected the demonstrators to win eventually.

Thousands of anti-government demonstrators have shut down Tbilisi's central streets on a nightly basis since parliament approved the bill's first reading on April 17.

Tens of thousands attended a government-organized rally in support of the bill, many of whom had been bussed in from provincial towns by the ruling party on Monday.

At that rally, former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who founded Georgian Dream, harshly criticized the West and hinted at a post-election crackdown on the opposition.

Ivanishvili told attendees that a "global party of war" had hijacked the EU and NATO and that it was bent on using those institutions to undermine Georgian sovereignty.

Ivanishvili, who says he wants Georgia to join the EU, said the foreign agent law would bolster national sovereignty, and he suggested that the country's pro-Western opposition was controlled by foreign intelligence services via grants to nongovernmental organizations.

He added that after elections due by October, Georgia's opposition, which is dominated by the United National Movement party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, would face "the harsh political and legal judgment it deserves".

Source: Reuters