Georgian Parliament Final approval Tuesday night Protesters around the building erupted in screams, boos and whistles over a controversial law aimed at closely monitoring overseas-funded organizations.
Many were shocked, some even in tears, and feared the law could change their country’s trajectory for years to come, bringing it closer to Russia and less to the European Union, which they want to join.
“This is a new chapter in our lives,” said Tamar Kintsurashvili, 54, who runs a nongovernmental organization that provides aid to Georgian media organizations. She was referring to what protesters called “Russian law,” saying it was similar to laws the Kremlin has used to control critics. “We know the Russian experience. We know how they operate.”
For weeks, protests have broken out nightly in squares and streets around Tbilisi’s parliament building, with thousands of the capital’s mostly young residents, who see Georgia’s future as aligned with the West — and the democratic freedoms that go with it — denouncing the country’s slide into Russia’s orbit.
“We don’t want to be the second Belarus — or Russia,” said Konstantine Chakhunashvili, 32, a pediatrician and Gate Members of the group have demonstrated daily in front of Parliament for the past two years, but the protests intensified after the government introduced the Foreign Influence Bill in April, with other groups and individuals joining in.
President Salome Zourabichvili, who has backed the protests, vetoed the bill this month but failed to block its passage on Tuesday night. Calling for protesters Urging a referendum on whether Georgia should align itself with Europe or Russia. The president, whose duties were largely ceremonial, also called on the country’s divided opposition parties to unite and oust the ruling Georgian Dream party in parliamentary elections in October.
“Are you angry today?” she told the crowd via video link. “Let’s start the action.”
While protesters have vowed to keep fighting, there is little they can do to change the reality of the bill, which was voted through on Tuesday by Georgian Dream lawmakers and their allies, overriding Zurabicvili’s veto.
The bill requires non-governmental organizations and media organizations that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register as organizations “pursuing foreign interests.”
Both the United States and the European Union have criticized the law, with EU officials saying it could hamper Georgia’s long-standing aspirations to join the bloc.
The protests have been organized largely by civil society groups, many of which have received funding from groups overseas that promote ideas such as democracy and a free media and fear the country is sliding toward authoritarianism. Many have coordinated their activities with opposition lawmakers over messaging apps.
The protests have received widespread support from citizens of the capital. Students marched from schools, workers from offices. Techno dance clubs in Tbilisi called on their patrons to go out in protest.
However, although most Georgians support joining the EU and NATO, according to arrive PollsBut the views of Tbilisi’s overwhelmingly young protesters are not shared by more conservative areas outside the city center.
This is especially true for older Georgians living in rural areas and small towns, many of whom bore the economic brunt of the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and Georgia’s descent into civil war.
Many repeated the government’s claim that foreign groups and the European Union were imposing their alleged LGBTQ ideology on Georgia — echoing the views of populist leaders in countries like Georgia. Hungary and SlovakiaIn response, they held their own marches, singing hymns and carrying crosses, rather than the anti-Russian slogans and waving EU flags of pro-Western demonstrations.
“Everyone wants to interfere in our politics and make sure there’s a war here like in Ukraine,” said Ketevan Lomidze, a 60-year-old doctor, at a recent “Family Values” rally in Tbilisi. “We want to be part of the European Union but at the same time have our own sovereignty, beliefs and traditions.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated that polarization, forcing Georgia to make a clearer choice between the West and its giant neighbor, said Dmitry Monyava, director of the Center for Strategic Communication, a Tbilisi-based research institute.
Mr. Monyava said the Georgian Dream party, led by reclusive oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, was taking steps to curb the activities of critics as it exploited fears among conservative voters that its 12-year control over Georgia might end.
“We are witnessing the formation of a full-fledged authoritarian regime,” he said.
In Tbilisi, many protesters are students and professionals born in independent Georgia after 1990. They say they fear their country is at a turning point and that democratic freedoms, such as those that allow them to protest in front of parliament, could be rolled back.
“If we let them go back to Soviet times, they will try to restrict freedom of assembly and expression,” said Chakhunashvili, a member of the protest group.
The government says it wants Georgia to join the EU and NATO, but has no choice but to take a more neutral stance toward Russia, given Georgia’s ties with Russia. A brief war in 2008 to avoid involvement in Ukraine’s spreading conflict. The prime minister’s office and the leader of the majority party in parliament declined interview requests.
Nino Zhizhilashvili is the anchor of Formula, Georgia’s main television station, and Caucasus Academy of MediaShe said she was attending the demonstrations to protest the increasingly restrictive media environment and physical attacks on journalists.
“We have chosen sides now, we cannot be impartial,” said Ms. Zhizhilashvili, 52. “We are all civil activists because we are under attack, our country is under attack — and we believe it is Russian pressure.”
Researcher Badri Okujava Suwei LaboratoryThe group of historians who study Georgia’s history under Soviet rule is one of the organizers of the protest.
“Russia did terrible things in our country,” Okudjawa said in an interview at SovLab’s offices, which are filled with dusty archival documents that he said outline Russia’s centuries-long occupation of Georgian land and destruction of its culture.
Mr. Okudjawa said the government was trying to cover up Moscow’s role in the events. He said government access to archives was strictly limited, while history textbooks overseen by the Education Ministry devoted more space to the Middle Ages, when Georgia’s main enemies were Turkey and Iran, not Russia.
Eka Gigauri is Transparency International GeorgiaThe group, which focuses on corruption, including writing a report on Georgian Dream founder Ivanishvili, said her organization would not follow the law.
She says her work makes her a constant target; her car has been spray-painted and her face has appeared on posters around Tbilisi accusing her of being a foreign agent and an “LGBTQ propagandist.”
“These people are acting in the interests of the Putin regime,” Ms. Gigori, 46, said of the government. She said the foreign influence bill would turn Georgia into “Russia’s backyard.”
