• The bill requiring organizations receiving foreign funds.
• To register as “foreign agents” has sparked protests in Tbilisi.
• With thousands of demonstrators brandishing Georgian and EU flags.

As a contentious draught bill requiring some organizations receiving foreign funds to register as “foreign agents” passed first reading in Georgia‘s parliament on Tuesday, protests broke out in Tbilisi.

Rights organizations have condemned the measure for restricting the nation’s fundamental liberties.

The website of the legislature streamed the court session live.

“76 votes for, 13 against. The bill was adopted in the first reading,” said Speaker of the Parliament Shalva Papuashvili.

To become law, the bill must pass more readings in parliament, but despite opposition both at home and abroad, it now seems to have widespread support among Georgian parliamentarians.

On Tuesday night, thousands of demonstrators were visible outside the parliament building, brandishing both the Georgian and the EU flags.

Security personnel replied with water cannons and tear gas while some people flung rocks and petrol bombs. Social media videos also showed demonstrators breaking down a barricade at the parliament building’s entrance.

There are worries that the law will make it more difficult for the nation to forge stronger connections with the European Union.

In a video message shared on Facebook, Salome Zourabichvili, the president of Georgia, expressed her support for the demonstrators, stating, “The path of European integration must be maintained.

All of those who supported and voted in favor of this measure today are in violation of the Constitution. All of them are isolating us from Europe,” she said.

If the law came to her desk, she vowed to repeal it. Human Rights Watch claims that the government’s Dream Party has the parliamentary majority enough to override a presidential veto.

“I said on day one that I would veto this law, and I will do that,” Zourabichvili said in the video.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry ordered the demonstrators to disperse and threatened to use “legal measures” to put an end to the unrest.

According to the nation’s state broadcaster First Channel, 66 persons were held and accused of crimes ranging from minor hooliganism to defiance to police.

According to First Channel, the ministry claimed that the demonstration deviated from the parameters of a nonviolent assembly and turned violent.

According to First Channel, the demonstrators flung stones, broke glasses, and damaged iron fences while attempting to block the gates to the parliament building.

According to the ministry, as reported by Fist Channel, police were compelled to use proportionate force to restore public order.

Fears that the bill is modelled after a contentious law in neighboring Russia that has already imposed draconian restrictions and requirements on organizations and people with foreign ties are highlighted by protesters’ chants, which insult both Georgian politicians and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While addressing the demonstrators, President Zourabichvili referred to the bill as “an unneeded statute that did not emerge out of nowhere, but was dictated by Moscow,” adding that she was “standing next to you because you are the same people who symbolize free Georgia today. Georgia is a country that recognizes its destiny in Europe and will not allow anyone to steal that future away.

Fears that the bill is modelled after a contentious law in neighboring Russia that has already imposed draconian restrictions and requirements on organizations and people with foreign ties are highlighted by protesters’ chants, which insult both Georgian politicians and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While addressing the demonstrators, President Zourabichvili referred to the bill as “an unneeded statute that did not emerge out of nowhere, but was dictated by Moscow,” adding that she was “standing next to you because you are the same people who symbolize free Georgia today.

Georgia is a country that recognises its destiny in Europe and will not allow anyone to steal that future away.

The bill would restrict the freedoms of expression and association in the nation with onerous financial reporting requirements, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

“The ‘foreign agent’ bills seek to marginalize and discredit independent, foreign-funded groups and media that serve the wider public interest in Georgia,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

An EU statement Tuesday warned that the law would be “incompatible with EU values and standards” and could have “serious repercussions on our relations.”

Ned Price, a spokesman for the US State Department, stated in February that “anyone voting for this draught law” could jeopardies Georgia’s ties to the West and Europe.

The former Soviet republic has had to strike a balance between the pro-European feeling of its populace and its geographic location adjacent to Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president, claimed in 2011 that Georgia would have joined NATO if Russia hadn’t invaded it in 2008.

The invasion only lasted a couple days, but it appeared to have the same excuse Russian President Vladimir Putin used to attack Ukraine in 2014 and last year, argues think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

“In the last few years, and especially over the past 18 months, Georgia’s ruling coalition has made a series of moves that seem designed to distance the country from the West and shift it gradually into Russia’s sphere of influence,” ECFR writes in a report where it attributes much of the drift to the ruling Georgian Dream party.

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