The Georgian Parliament adopted on Wednesday May 1, 2024 at second reading a controversial bill on “foreign influence”, the origin of major protest demonstrations in this Caucasian country, violently repressed by the police. Its opponents call it “Russian law”. On Tuesday evening, April 30, the police dispersed the crowd using water cannons and tear gas.
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The deputies voted 83 for and 23 against this text which the ruling Georgian Dream party wants to adopt definitively by mid-May, despite three weeks of mobilization in the streets of opponents of the bill. Earlier in the day, scuffles between MPs broke out in the Georgian Parliament when consideration of the law resumed. In images broadcast by Georgian television, we can see an MP throwing a book in the direction of opposition elected officials, while others insult each other and physically attack each other.
The ruling party hopes to have a vote by mid-May. The text must undergo three readings in Parliament and be ratified by the presidency. The Georgian president is expected to veto, but the ruling party has enough seats in parliament to override it.
The President of the European Council Charles Michel considered that the text was not not compatible with Georgia’s wish to become a member of the EU.
Demonstration repressed
The previous night, the situation was very tense between the police and a few thousand demonstrators around the Parliament of Georgia. The evening began calmly, but with opponents displaying their determination in front of the entrances to the building, under the deputies’ windows. They shouted to them “ Monebo » (“ slaves ”, in French) or “ Roussebo » (“ Russians », in French) to tell them that they consider them traitors in the pay of Moscow, reports our correspondent in Tbilisi, Régis Genté.
But at the end of the evening, the police began to disperse the crowd very violently. It’s a “ totally unjustified, unprovoked and disproportionate use of force », condemned President of the Republic, Salomé Zourabichvili. Georgian authorities announced the arrest of 63 pro-European demonstrators.
MP Levan Khabeishvili, president of imprisoned ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement, the main opposition party, was violently beaten and had to receive treatment. Local television channels broadcast images showing his face marked with beatings.
Tbilisi (Georgia), this evening
For 2 weeks, demonstrators have been protesting every evening against a Russian-inspired law, known as “foreign agents”
Police use water cannons and rubber bullets pic.twitter.com/5hyIXaiyhF
— François Beaudonnet 🌎 (@beaudonnet) April 30, 2024
The ruling party in a position of strength
On Tuesday, the demonstrators were fewer than expected. Maybe because of the show of force from the day before of the ruling party, the Georgian Dream of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who, worried about the persistence of opposition to his law, wanted to bring together Georgians from all over the country.
There, the billionaire outlined a clearly anti-Western political vision and promised repression against the opposition and civil society once the text on foreign agents was adopted. This text, strongly inspired by the Russian law of 2012, plans to oblige civil society organizations and the media to declare themselves “foreign agents” if more than 20% of their budget comes from another country.
International guestEU membership: “Georgia has no right to miss this chance,” warns President Zourabichvili