Western politicians and diplomats have called for a halt to spiralling violence in Georgia after security forces used water cannon, teargas, stun grenades and rubber bullets to break up a peaceful rally against a “foreign influence” bill overnight.
The EU, which has granted Georgia candidate status, “strongly condemned” the violence and called on the government to respect the right of peaceful assembly. “Use of force to suppress it is unacceptable,” foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X.
Georgian MPs brawled in parliament on Wednesday as they approved the second reading of the bill, which would force NGOs, civil rights groups and media to register as “foreign agents” if more than 20% of their funding came from abroad.
Local media showed a pro-government deputy throwing a book at opposition MPs, while others shouted and physically confronted their opponents. Opposition parties, the EU and the US have criticised the bill as authoritarian and Russian-inspired.
Police detained 63 protesters in the capital, Tbilisi, on Tuesday night and six officers were injured, the country’s interior ministry said, in the authorities’ most violent crackdown yet on the three-week-old protest movement.
Tuesday’s rally, in which about 2,000 people blocked traffic outside parliament on Tbilisi’s main avenue and other key roads, braving masked riot police who attacked protesters with rubber batons, continued well past midnight.
Several journalists and opposition politicians were also attacked. Levan Khabeishvili – the leader of Georgia’s main opposition party, the United National Movement of the jailed former president Mikheil Saakashvili – posted a photo of his badly beaten face. “If my beating prevented that of another, young activist, I’m only happy it happened to me,” Khabeishvili posted. “This country belongs to the passionate next generation.”
Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, who opposes the government but whose powers are mostly ceremonial, appealed to the interior minister to stop the violence, calling the crackdown “totally unwarranted, unprovoked and out of proportion”.
Georgia’s rights ombudsman, Levan Ioseliani, called for an investigation into the use of “disproportionate force” against protesters and journalists. The interior ministry insisted police had intervened only after the protest turned violent.
The bill has heightened tensions in the polarised southern Caucasus country, setting the ruling Georgian Dream party against a largely youth-led protest movement backed by opposition groups, civil society, celebrities and the president.
The bill requires three readings and a presidential signature to become law. Zourabichvili is widely expected to veto it, but Georgian Dream and its allies have enough seats to override her.
Georgia, which lost a brief war with Russia in 2008, has long sought to deepen its relations with the west and won candidate EU member status in December, but critics say Georgian Dream is trying to steer the former Soviet republic closer to Russia.
The president of the EU council, Charles Michel, has said the bill – which is similar to a law used to crack down on dissent in Russia – would take Georgia “further away from the EU, not closer”.
The head of EU enlargement negotiations, Gert Jan Koopman, landed in Georgia on Wednesday amid mounting concern in EU capitals that the populist ruling party was actively seeking to undermine progress towards accession.
On X, the German Green MEP Viola von Cramon called for “concrete consequences” for Georgia, including the withdrawal of EU candidate status, a halt to EU funding for development projects, and travel bans for MPs who vote in favour of the bill.
Peter Fischer, the German ambassador to Georgia, said on Wednesday the violence should stop. “It is never a solution,” he said on X.
Jim O’Brien, the US state department’s assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, said on Tuesday he had had an “important conversation” with Georgian MPs about “our strong concerns over the draft Kremlin-inspired ‘foreign influence’ law and its negative impact on Georgia’s European aspirations”.
Georgian Dream’s chair, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, told a pro-government rally this week the bill was needed because “non-transparent funding of NGOs is the main instrument for the appointment of a Georgian government from abroad”.
Addressing an audience of supporters, many of whom were reportedly bussed to the rally on Monday or ordered to attend, Ivanishvili said a “global party of war” had hijacked the EU and Nato to undermine Georgian sovereignty.
Ivanishvili, who says he wants Georgia to join the EU, said the “foreign agent” law would bolster national sovereignty.
The party shelved a first attempt to introduce the bill last year after protests. “They are scared. They see our resolve,” one protester, Natia Gabisonia, told Agence-France Presse.
Georgia’s bid for membership of the EU and Nato is enshrined in its constitution, and opinion polls suggest it is supported by more than 80% of the population.
Brussels has said Tbilisi must reform its judicial and electoral systems, reduce political polarisation, improve press freedom and curtail the power of oligarchs before formal accession talks can be launched.
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators have shut down Tbilisi’s central streets almost nightly since parliament approved the bill’s first reading on 17 April.
Tina Khidasheli, a defence minister in a former Georgian Dream-led government, said she expected the demonstrators to win eventually. “The government is just prolonging the inevitable,” she told Reuters.
AFP and Reuters contributed to this report
