Demonstrations in Georgia: repression hardens against opponents of the law on "foreign influence"
The Georgian government is intentionally degrading the situation, while tensions remain very high between the government and opponents of its bill on foreign agents, which they describe as a “Russian law”, this one being inspired by ‘a Russian text from 2012, very liberticidal. The bill aims to force NGOs and media, whose budgets exceed 20% from another country, to declare themselves as “foreign agents”. Its adoption is seen by large sections of Georgian society as a way to cut it off from the West and force it back into the Russian orbit.
Faced with massive gatherings which have lasted for three weeks, the government is encouraging violence and threats against its opponents. Certain figures from civil society, for example, discovered, on Thursday May 9, tags and posters in their homes or offices where they are designated as “traitors” or “enemies of the nation”. Dozens of these people, active in opposition to the law on foreign agents, also receive threatening and insulting telephone calls.
On Thursday evening, Outcha Abashidze, a blogger, was arrested after a search of his home, where he was deprived of the assistance of a lawyer. Protesters gathered outside his home shouted “slaves of the Russians” to the police as they left the building. The repression is beginning, they fear, hoping in the days to come to bring together even more opponents of this law than on the evening of May 1, when there were 80,000 in front of Parliament.
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