Georgia’s human rights record remained uneven in 2023 – Human Rights Watch

The latest World Report 2024 by Human Rights Watch said Georgia’s human rights record remained uneven in 2023, citing tensions over the government’s implementation of the 12 priorities set by the European Union for Georgia’s EU candidacy, which it said included “important human rights benchmarks”. 

It also said the Georgian authorities had attempted to adopt foreign agent legislation last year that “would have undermined” freedom of expression, and pointed to “lack of accountability for law enforcement abuses, especially related to freedom of assembly”. 

The report published this week also highlighted other human rights concerns including “restrictions and attacks on media freedom” as well as “unfair labor conditions”. 

It added the National Human Rights Strategy had “failed” to include the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

The organization also noted the domestic parliament had passed “new, restrictive” regulations on media accreditation last year which, among other things, allowed the authorities to ban journalists from parliament for asking members of parliament questions after they refuse to be interviewed. 

It added that officials cited alleged harassment of MPs by the media to justify the amendments. 

Reacting to the report, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said such surveys used “politically biased” reports by domestic “elite” NGOs, slamming the latter for their encouragement of “radicalism and extremism” in the country with the funds of foreign donors like the European Foundation for Democracy. 

The official once again hailed the foreign transparency bill that was rejected by the Parliament in March 2023 following mass protests in Tbilisi, with demonstrators and the international community labeling the legal piece as a “Russian law”. 

The bill proposed by the representatives of the parliamentary majority envisaged the registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “agents of foreign influence” if they received more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad.