In recent years, the Georgian government has taken an increasingly illiberal and anti-Western turn. On 3 April 2024, the ruling Georgian Dream majority announced its second attempt to pass a “foreign agents” law, which would require civil society and media organisations that accept funds from abroad to register as “organizations carrying out the interests of a foreign power” or face fines, more than a year after abandoning an earlier attempt to pass the law amid mass protests.
The press conference featuring Georgian opposition leader Nika Gvaramia and MEPs Petras Auštrevičius, Viola von Cramon-Taubadel and Anna Fotyga, will focus on negative implications the adoption of the “foreign agents” law would have to Georgia’s European future. The Georgian piece of legislation is inspired by russia’s foreign agent law, which, since its introduction in 2012, has been used by the russian authorities as a suppressive tool against civil society, media and political opponents.
A former media executive and political prisoner pardoned in June 2023, Nika Gvaramia recently co-founded the political party Ahali (meaning “New” in Georgian) with Nika Melia, another prominent figure in Georgian politics. Preliminary polls indicate that, just four weeks after its formation, Ahali is emerging as one of the leading opposition parties in the nation.
22 апр 2024
