Fluoroscopy | In the streets against a law with “Putin” sauce

Tension is rising in Tbilisi, where demonstrations were harshly repressed this week. What if the worst was yet to come?

Why are we talking about it

Levan Khabeishvili this week became the (swollen) face of pro-European resistance in Georgia. This MP from the main opposition party was beaten by the police during the daily demonstrations which brought together thousands of people – mainly young people – in the streets of the capital, Tbilisi.

The police violently repressed the movement with arrests, gas and rubber bullets. ” Look at me ! What you see, these traces on my body, these are the traces of Russia,” Khabeishvili said in a speech to Parliament.

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The Reasons Of The Wrath

The demonstrators vigorously oppose the bill on “foreign influence”, adopted on Wednesday in second reading. This law provides that Georgian NGOs or media receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad will now have to register as an “organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power”, under penalty of falling into the illegality. The government assures that this measure is intended to force organizations to be more “transparent”. Its detractors see it above all as a carbon copy of a Russian law, used for years by the Kremlin to persecute dissident voices. Hence its nickname: the “Putin law”.

A trigger

This is not the first time that the ruling party, the Georgian Dream, has tried to pass this controversial text, seen as an obstacle to Tbilisi’s aspirations to join the European Union (EU). A similar bill was abandoned a year ago following pressure from the street, before being put back on the table at the beginning of April by the ruling party. More than the law itself, it is this “insistence” that worries Georgians, explains Maria Popova, professor of political science at McGill University. “The government is showing that it is clearly motivated to move towards Russia,” she explains. It is to denounce this that people are in the streets. The bill is just a trigger. »

A “Georgian Dream”… which tends towards Moscow

According to a National Democratic Institute poll conducted a year ago, 82% of the Georgian population would be in favor of joining the EU. The country applied for its membership in the days following the invasion of Ukraine, and was officially admitted as a “candidate” five months ago, in December 2023. However, even if he was elected on his promises of a balanced policy between he West and Russia, it seems that the Georgian Dream party is leaning more and more heavily towards Moscow. The oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, co-founder, honorary president, main sponsor of the party and de facto leader of the country, delivered a hostile speech at the beginning of the week, accusing Westerners, the opposition and Georgian civil society of harm the “sovereignty of the country”, and threatening dissident voices with reprisals, which reignited the fuse of protest.

The West has Georgia in mind

The law on “foreign influence” was strongly criticized by Westerners. The United States said it was “deeply concerned” by “the consequences it could have in terms of stifling dissent and freedom of expression”, while France reiterated its “deep concern” at the repression of demonstrations. The European Union, for its part, condemned the “violence” of the police and called on Georgia to “stay the course” towards the European Union. Finally, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for the “withdrawal” of the bill and urged the Georgian authorities to “engage in dialogue, in particular with civil society and the media”.

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Elections and more repression?

These unrest comes a few months before legislative elections scheduled for October, considered an important test for democracy in this former Soviet republic accustomed to political crises. For Maria Popova, the medium-term future therefore looks crucial, while both camps seem determined to move forward. “We are in the same situation as Euromaidan in 2014, in Ukraine. I believe that we will continue to see intense demonstrations demanding the resignation of the government. The worry is that it will fall into autocratic mode and repression, now that it has clearly shown its colors. Seeing that the opposition is growing, they are not going to take the risk of waiting for the election and could take advantage of the coming weeks to suppress the movement. »

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The controversial text must undergo a third reading in Parliament “around mid-May” and be ratified by President Salomé Zourabichvili. Opposed to the law, the latter will likely veto it, but the ruling party has a sufficient number of seats to override it. However, nothing excludes dissension within the majority, with certain deputies refusing “to go against these immense crowds”, concludes the expert. Hence the importance, for the demonstrators, of not releasing the pressure until D-day, with all the risks that this entails.