OC Media refuses to register as ‘foreign agent’ in Georgia as government deadline passes

OC Media has refused to register with the Georgian Government as an organisation ‘carrying out the interests of a foreign power’ after the deadline to do so passed on Monday.

OC Media, a regional news platform registered and headquartered in Georgia, joins a majority of local media and non-governmental organisations in boycotting the controversial legislation.

OC Media co-founder and executive director Mariam Nikuradze stated that registering in the database ‘would go against our mission’.

‘This law is not about transparency; this law aims to destroy independent media and civil society in Georgia’, she said. ‘As such, we cannot in good conscience comply with it’.

After the deadline passed on Monday, Deputy Justice Minister Tamar Tkeshelashvili said that 476 organisations had voluntarily filed a request to register. Tkeshelashvili has previously stated that around 30,000 non-governmental and media organisations operate in the country. Of those, around 1,200 are state-based, which are not required to register. 

The ruling Georgian Dream party adopted the foreign agent law on 28 May amidst massive street protests and widespread calls from rights groups and the country’s Western partners to drop it.

According to the foreign agent law, organisations that receive more than 20% of their income from abroad had to register in the database by Monday. Organisations refusing to comply will continue to be fined ₾25,000 ($9,300) until they agree to do so.

[Read more: Georgian government launches onerous and invasive registration for ‘foreign agent’ NGOs and media]

From 3 September, the Ministry of Justice will have the right to forcefully register organisations, begin fining them, and start ‘monitoring’ their finances and internal communications and documents.

‘The coming months will be difficult for us’, OC Media’s Nikuradze said, ‘as we face financial sanctions, and even the possibility of criminal prosecutions’. 

‘But we owe it to our readers to stay true to our values’.

On 26 August, Georgia’s constitutional court began to consider several lawsuits challenging the foreign agent law.

The claimants, including President Salome Zourabichvili, 38 MPs, and over 120 civil society groups, have argued that the bill threatens to derail Georgia from its pro-Western trajectory, which is stipulated in the country’s constitution.

Following the law’s adoption, the EU stated that Georgia’s membership application had been halted, while the US has applied travel bans on several people involved in its passage.

The Constitutional Court is expected to make a decision in the coming days on whether to hear the cases against the law, and if so, whether to temporarily suspend the legislation pending their final ruling.

Read in Armenian on CivilNet.

Read in Russian on SOVA.News.