Washington is extremely concerned about Georgia’s possible passage of the Foreign Influence Transparency Act, as it will negatively affect free speech in the country and could potentially undermine Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration plans. . This was announced Feb. 16 by State Department spokesman Ned Price.
Earlier it became known that the Georgian Parliament will register bills on the regulation of media and non-governmental organizations. The initiative belongs to the Power of the People movement, which is made up of former members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, who, despite splitting from the ruling party last June, continue to be part of the parliamentary majority.
According to them, all entities falling under the concept of “agent of foreign influence” will be required to declare their financial income and expenditure, which will “significantly contribute” to ensuring the national security of Georgia. Meanwhile, in the case of the media, according to the MPs, the rules they are proposing “will prevent the spread of lies”, as they will give the state the right to “respond appropriately”.
“The proposed law will stigmatize and silence the independent voices of Georgian citizens seeking to create a better future for their society. We believe such a law would pose a potential threat to Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said, adding that the U.S. side shares its concerns in this regard with the United States. representatives of Georgian leaders.
Price called “knowingly untrue” statements by the bill’s authors that, in drafting it, they were guided by “the American experience”, in particular the “Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA) which has been in effect in the United States since 1938.
“This bill appears to be based on similar Russian and Hungarian legislation, not FARA or US legislation,” Price said.
Recall that the American “Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA) was drawn up before the Second World War in order to prevent the spread of Nazi propaganda in the country. Since then, it has changed several times. Currently, it only applies to the work of foreign lobbying organizations. However, FARA does not cover non-political lobbying.
Russia has had similarly named legislation since 2012, although this legal mechanism has been shown to be used to suppress free speech and restrict the work of organizations objectionable to the authorities, such as the Russian NGO Memorial, which has researched political repression. .
The ruling party Georgian Dream, in response to Ned Price’s statement, said that nothing extraordinary was happening in Georgia and that, for example, on February 13, the largest party in the European Parliament, the Party People’s Republic of Europe, also proposed adopting a law similar to the American FARA with the aim of obtaining greater transparency from foreign-funded lobbyists. As a result, as ruling party MP Rati Ionatamishvili said, given the “increased risks in the region”, at least “it will be interesting to discuss the bill and listen to the arguments”. At the same time, he assured that nothing threatens freedom of expression in Georgia.
Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobakhidze, said he was not familiar with the Russian legislation, but, knowing the details of the American FARA, he can say that the document proposed by Power of the People is “much softer than its American version.”
“If we are talking about the fact that this bill is different from the American bill, then it is necessary to clarify what the difference between them is. At this stage, I cannot act as a defender of this law, since we have not yet formed a specific position on it,” Kobakhidze said on February 16.
Ignorance of the details of Russian law on foreign agents was also declared by the Anti-Western People’s Power, which presented the bill to parliament.
“We don’t limit anything to anyone. On the contrary, we are talking about democracy and transparency. I am surprised to hear such insulting statements,” said Mikheil Kavelashvili, a People Power MP, commenting on Ned Price’s statement.
Former Georgia ombudsman Nino Lomjaria believes that the people’s forces bill, which she says she has seen, “is similar in essence to the laws invented and adopted in Putin’s Russia” and that in the world laws of this type are perceived as “actions on the formalization of authoritarianism.
It should be noted that the representatives of “People’s Power” left the ruling party on the pretext that they could not “speak the truth” in the ranks of the ruling party. The “truth” in the case turned out to mean anti-Western rhetoric, including attacks on Kelly Degnan, the US ambassador to Georgia, who Power of the People accuses of allegedly “weakening state institutions and strengthened the radical opposition”. as coordinated attempts to change the Georgian authorities and in an attempt to “draw Georgia into a war” against Russia.
Washington has repeatedly expressed concern over continued attempts by some Georgian politicians to undermine the US-Georgia partnership. In response to the increase in attacks on the US Ambassador to Georgia, State Department spokesman Ned Price has previously pointed out that misinformation and personal attacks on Ambassador Degnan or her team are not in the spirit of partnership.
Kelly Degnan herself called the anti-Western and anti-American statements by Power of the People MPs “lies and conspiracy theories”, as well as “pro-Russian misinformation”.
Pro-Western opposition in Georgia calls People Power a pro-Russian force, saying its split from the Georgian Dream is a fiction and that in reality the ‘schismatic MPs’ reflect the position of the party’s founder , billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
