Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday authorised a controversial legislation on so-called “overseas brokers”, seen as a hazard to democracy. The legislation, modeled on an analogous one in power for years in Russia, gives that media and NGOs that obtain at the very least 20 % of their funds from overseas should register as entities that “pursue the pursuits of a overseas energy.” The approval of the legislation triggered massive protests in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, which have now lasted for a month and have been attended by tens of 1000’s of individuals.
The protests stood out partly as a result of tenacity of the demonstrators, who participated for a very long time and in massive numbers regardless of clashes with the numerous policemen deployed to comprise the protests, and partly as a result of massive presence of Union flags European Union (of which Georgia just isn’t half). Even from a easy aesthetic perspective, the protests have been very notable, with demonstrators wrapped in coloured raincoats and carrying European and Georgian flags going through hordes of officers with their faces coated and wearing black.
Tbilisi, Georgia, May 13 (Daro Sulakauri/Getty Images)
Georgia is a rustic within the Caucasus with roughly 3.7 million inhabitants. It overlooks the Black Sea and borders Turkey to the south and Russia to the north. It was a republic of the Soviet Union till its dissolution in 1991: since then it has alternated moments of rapprochement with the European Union and the West with phases by which it suffered extra from Russian affect, as in recent times, with the federal government of populist occasion Georgian Dream. In 2008, Russia militarily invaded two Georgian areas, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which it nonetheless occupies and correspond to twenty % of Georgia’s territory.
Tbilisi, Georgia April 28 (REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze)