International

Georgia condemned for crackdown on protesters opposing ‘foreign agents’ bill

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 Guardian reports.

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 resumed debating 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 comes 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 continued well past midnight, with about 2,000 people blocking traffic outside parliament on Tbilisi’s main avenue and other key roads, braving masked riot police who attacked protesters with rubber batons.

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.”

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