Georgians protest anti-NGO bill as ruling party vows to adopt

TBILISI: Hundreds of young Georgians crowded outside parliament on Monday ahead of a third straight night of protests against a “foreign influence” bill that has split the Caucasus country and triggered international condemnation.

A month of tensions over the bill — dubbed the “Russian law” by its critics for its resemblance to repressive Kremlin legislation — is approaching a critical point, with the ruling Georgian Dream party pledging Monday to adopt it within 48 hours.

The capital Tbilisi has been gripped by its largest street protests in years since April, when authorities revived the plans a year after a similar wave of rallies forced them to back down.

Georgian students announced a strike on Monday and plan to march down Tbilisi’s main Rustaveli Avenue to parliament later in the evening.

Police were out in force on Monday guarding the building.

In the early hours of Monday, riot police were filmed beating a group of protestors — images that have further angered the demonstrators.

“It will be an answer to the police, which has turned to violence,” 21-year-old Luka Chokhonelidze said of Monday’s planned protest.

He called the bill, which targets independent NGOs, “shameful”. Opponents say it will sabotage Georgia’s hopes of joining the European Union and accuse the ruling party of moving the Black Sea nation closer to Moscow. The Georgian Dream vowed Monday not to back down and to pass it by the middle of the week. “The plan is to adopt it in the third reading,” Georgian Dream MP Nikoloz Samkharadze told AFP. He said it would be passed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

On Monday morning, protesters tried to block Georgian Dream MPs from entering parliament. They managed to get into the building from the back and pushed the bill through a parliamentary legal committee — needed before it goes to a vote — in less than two minutes. The law requires NGOs and media outlets that receive over 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as an “organisation pursuing the interests of a foreign power”.