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Foreign agent law has to stay in place owing to will of Georgian people — deputy PM

The ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party announced in early April that it had decided to reintroduce the bill On the Transparency of Foreign Influence to parliament

TBILISI, April 23. /TASS/. There is no way around the law on foreign agents as the Georgian people demand to know exactly who is funding non-governmental organizations, Deputy Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said.

"Georgian society supports the idea of the transparency of non-governmental organizations. The transparency of NGOs is needed for society to be well-informed and a well-informed society is essential in terms of ensuring the country’s sovereignty. <…> This means that there is no alternative to this law (on foreign agents - TASS)," he told journalists.

On April 17, Georgia’s parliament approved in the first reading a bill on foreign agents. It was opposed by Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, the opposition and Western diplomats, who saw it as an obstacle to the country's integration into the European Union. Since Monday, the opposition and civil activists have been holding rallies against the bill in Tbilisi. Protests sometimes turn into clashes with police. The police have detained some of the protesters.

The ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party announced in early April that it had decided to reintroduce the bill On the Transparency of Foreign Influence to parliament. This happened a year after a similar initiative triggered mass protests, forcing the authorities to abandon the bill. Its text remains identical to last year’s, except for the term "agent of foreign influence." Instead, the term "organization promoting the interests of a foreign power" is used.

Similar laws are in force in Russia, several Western countries, as well as in Australia, Israel, and China. The first such law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, was passed in the United States in 1938. Israel adopted the NGO Transparency Law in July 2016. China passed a law regulating the activity of foreign NGO’s in January 2017. The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act has been in force in Australia since 2018. In 2023, the United Kingdom adopted the National Security Act, which also regulates NGO activities. A similar bill is being considered by the French parliament.

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