Ruling party officials focus on importance of transparency bill it had to reject after mass protests

The ruling Georgian Dream party officials have several times highlighted the importance of the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act over the past several days, with a similar bill withdrawn by them in March after mass public protests in Tbilisi, with demonstrators and the international community labeling the piece as a “Russian law”. 

 

Thea Tsulukiani, the Vice Prime Minister and Mamuka Mdinaradze,the GD MP, pointed to the “significance” of the bill on Wednesday and Thursday, after the disclosure of the US-based law firm Akerman with the country’s Department of Justice, as part of FARA, had revealed the currently imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili had paid for the European resolutions calling for his release and communications with the US and the UK officials to impose sanctions on the Georgian government for his alleged “ill-treatment” while in custody. 

 

Calling the information a “big scandal” and “hostility” to national interests and the country’s European integration, Mdinaradze have also made a mention of Saakashvili’s United National Movement opposition party and “their assignees” behind the “anti-state moves” along with Saakashvili. 

 

The foreign transparency bill proposed by the representatives of the ruling Georgian Dream party earlier this year initiated the registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “agents of foreign influence” if they obtained more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad, without specifying allied and hostile states. 

 

The domestic NGOs and the international community claimed the authorities could use the law, if approved, to suppress the organizations and media outlets critical to them, like in Russia. 

 

They also claimed the proposal of the bill ahead of the European Union’s decision later this year whether to grant Georgia its membership candidate status, could “undermine” the country’s European aspirations and benefit the interests of Russia.