deputies to the hands for the law on ‘foreign agents’ – Corriere TV

The voltage remains high a Tbilisi where protests have been going on for days against a government bill that aims to introduce new ones rules for the control of so-called ‘foreign agents’ on the model of the one already in force in Russia, and which is seen by the opposition as a attempt to gag the media. Hundreds of demonstrators make their voices heard outside the Parliament, but tension also unfolds inside the institutional buildings.
Some deputies came to blows in the chamber where the parliamentary debate was taking place. They flew jostling and some slaps between deputies for and against the new legislation.
The Russian-style bill supported by the ruling Georgian Dream party is being discussed in Parliament these days for theintroduction of a register of organizations regarded as ‘agent of foreign influence’. The measure provides that non-governmental organizations receiving financing from abroad more than 20 per cent of their budget are included in the register. President Salome Zurabishvili has anticipated that she will veto the law if Parliament approves it. Criticisms of the measure have already come from both the US and the EU.