Georgia: A bill against NGOs and media receiving funding from abroad threatens citizens’ rights

ROMA – Georgia is protesting the introduction of a bill that, if passed, will force NGOs and media outlets that receive 20 percent or more of their funding from foreign countries to register as foreign organizations. The legislative proposal resembles one that the government attempted to adopt in 2023 and then withdrew due to citizen protests. In the new version, the ruling party, “Georgian Dream”, has replaced the term “agents of foreign influence” with “organizations that serve the interests of a foreign power”, but the substance does not change because the law – comments Human Rights Watch (HRW) – however represents a threat to the full realization of the people’s rights.

The law. Georgian legislation already requires non-governmental organizations to report to the authorities all grants they receive, including the amounts and duration of the projects they manage, if they want to benefit from tax exemptions. NGOs must also submit monthly financial reports that include information on the number of employees, service contracts and taxes paid. Instead, the media prepares monthly income and expenditure dossiers to submit to the Communications Regulatory Commission. The current bill, which should be definitively discussed next week, however conceals an ulterior motive: to limit the work of the media and organizations that criticize the government or that defend the rights of homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders, who are targeted by the party in power with another bill presented at the end of March. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze justified the bill with the need to defend the country because already in 2020 and 2022 some civic groups would have attempted to “organize a revolution”, “spread LGBT propaganda” and “discredit the police, judiciary and the local Orthodox Church”. Georgia will go to elections in October.

The protests. Tens of thousands of people protested for days against the design, in Tbilisi as in other cities, but the police repression was violent including tear gas, water cannons and pepper spray. HRW also denounces the use of rubber bullets by the police. The organization heard three people brutally beaten in demonstrations that took place on the night between 30 April and 1 May. Ted Jonas, a 62-year-old lawyer, suffered numerous bruises, a black eye, abrasions and nosebleeds, as did Vakhtang Kobaladze, a 49-year-old man. A 17-year-old boy said five officers dragged him to the ground and kicked him repeatedly, causing a head injury, a busted lip and bruises over his left eye and all over his chest, shoulders, back and hands. On May 2, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, called on the Georgian authorities to conduct rapid and transparent investigations into police abuses and urged them to withdraw the bill which poses serious threats to freedom of expression and association.

Previous. In 2022 the European Court of Human Rights found that Russia’s “foreign agents” law, similar to the bill under discussion in Georgia, violated Article 11 of the European Convention, which protects the right of association. The Court ruled that the creation of a special status and an ad hoc legal regime for organizations receiving foreign funding is not justified and that such restrictions interfere with the functions of the organizations themselves because the right to seek, receive and use resources from national and international sources is an integral part of the right to freedom of association.