Foreign agents bills to be discussed at parliament plenary session today

The head of the ruling Georgian Dream party in the parliament, Mamuka Mdinaradze, on Tuesday proposed the launch of discussions around controversial foreign agents bills at the plenary session today, instead of the scheduled date on Thursday. 

 

He said the discussions on the country’s defence code had been postponed and the body “had time” to launch the discussions of the two bills earlier than scheduled. 

 

The bills proposed by former members of the ruling party who still remain in the parliamentary majority have caused large-scale controversies, with the international community and domestic NGOs condemning them as a “Russian law aiming at silencing independent voices” in the country. 

 

The bills backed by the ruling party envisage the registration of domestic NGOs and media organizations as foreign agents if they derive more than 20 percent of their incomes from abroad.