During the week, the streets of the capital Tbilisi have been filled with thousands of protesters and riot police. At times, things have also gotten messy as the Georgian government has been accused of strengthening its ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin.
– It was very tense, hundreds of police, both ordinary and riot police, blocked all the side streets to the parliament. It was noticed during the evening how protesters were walking around in groups and trying to surround the parliament, says Rasmus Canbäck, reporter at Blankspot who covered the protests on site.
“Trying to harass civil society”
The reason why the people took to the streets was that the parliament had voted through the controversial “foreign agents law”, which is called by the critics the “Russian law”.
– The purpose of the law is to try to stifle civil society. It would have a severe chilling effect and many would probably not continue their business. Foreign donors would turn a blind eye, says Hugo von Essen.
The ruling party Georgian Dream tried to pass the law last year, but had to back down after large protests. The law is justified by the government by wanting to ensure transparent financing, but has been criticized by several international organizations.
The proposal means that the organizations that receive a certain part of their funding from abroad must be registered as “foreign agents”. Human Rights Watch believes that it is an attempt to control and limit independent media and civil society.
– There are very strict reporting requirements and you can also receive administrative penalties if you do not follow them, but also prison, says Hugo von Essen.
Move away from the EU
Hugo von Essen believes that the bill could be the “nail in the coffin” for Georgia’s future in Europe and that the government chooses to proceed with the bill right now, he believes, can be due to several things.
This autumn, Georgia will go to elections and von Essen believes that the government may want to weaken civil society before then. At the same time, there will be EU elections in the spring, which may give the bill less attention from the European side.
– Then there can be other, more obscure explanations, such as pressure from Russia, says Hugo von Essen.
Georgia was granted candidate status in the EU as recently as last December, on the condition that several measures were taken.
The opposition boycotted the vote
The bill has now passed through Parliament, the first of three instances. The result of the vote was 83 – 0, when the opposition chose to boycott. Before the vote, it has also become violent in parliament – when an opposition member of parliament hit a member of parliament from the ruling party.
– They deliberately planned the vote for the morning so that the members of parliament could leave before the large masses took to the streets, that was learned from last year, says Rasmus Canbäck from Blankspot.
Despite the fact that, according to Canbäck, the protests follow a non-violent principle, it has been chaotic at times. The police were ready with water cannons and during the protests he heard several explosions in the area, but the fact that the people took to the streets was not surprising.
– It is a development that the government is taking this step, it is so clearly authoritarian and hostile to a broad free society as it targets free civil society and journalism. We have seen it in other countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Belarus, says Rasmus Canbäck.