
Georgian Dream announces plans to introduce new laws targeting media and NGOs
The ruling party claimed that the new legislation aligns with British and American standards.
The foreign agent law, dubbed the ‘Russian Law’, labels civil society or media organisations receiving funding from abroad ‘organisations carrying out the interests of a foreign power’. Such organisations are subject to monitoring every six months, which lawyers have warned could include forcing them to hand over internal communications and confidential sources.
The ruling party claimed that the new legislation aligns with British and American standards.
The ruling party’s parliamentary leader, Mamuka Mdinaradze, has cited US President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily suspend foreign aid.
Pridon Bubuteishvili, 20, was convicted of injuring a firefighter and damaging parliament’s gates during May’s foreign agent law protests.
Georgian Dream’s political council has approved party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili’s recommendation to keep Irakli Kobakhidze as prime minister. The political council convened on Thursday to nominate Georgian Dream members for the several posts. The official results of 26 October’s elections gave the ruling Georgian Dream party a large majority, with 54% of the vote. However, local media and observer groups have documented widespread vote rigging by the ruling party. The party’s executiv
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has registered a case against the foreign agent law adopted amidst mass protests in Georgia, according to the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA). The controversial foreign agent law has been sent to the ECHR for review on behalf 136 civil organisations in Georgia, including GYLA, as well as four private Georgian citizens. On Wednesday, GYLA cited six separate articles of the European Convention on Human Rights that the law allegedly violat
France, Germany, and Poland, known as the Weimar Triangle, have expressed their concern regarding voting irregularities in Georgia’s elections, noting that they cannot support the start of EU accession negotiations unless Georgian Dream’s controversial foreign agent and anti-queer laws are repealed. On Thursday, Weimar Triangle leaders French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk issued a joint statement on Georgia’s post-election situ
Two days before the parliamentary elections, Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri has announced the purchase of several new water cannons for the riot police. Gomelauri’s announcement came on Thursday at the opening ceremony of the new Special Tasks Department base in Krtsanisi, a suburb of Tbilisi. The department is responsible for the riot police deployed in protests in Georgia. ‘We bought new equipment […] We bought water cannons, machines bought by the previous government in 200