TBILISI, Georgia (AP) – Georgia’s parliament on Friday voted to scrap a law on the registration of foreign agents, after the law, which opponents warned could be used to stifle dissent and restrict media freedom, prompted tens of thousands of demonstrators to storm the capital this week.
In a session that lasted just four minutes and had no discussion, MPs voted 35-1 against the bill. The vote came less than a day after Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream, announced it would withdraw the law.
The proposed law would have required media and non-governmental organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as “agents with foreign influence”. Critics argued that if passed, the law could hamper Georgia’s aspirations to one day join NATO and the European Union.
The rebellious Russian mercenary commander, who ordered his troops to march on Moscow, said he was responding to an attack by rival Russian military forces on his camps in Ukraine on Friday.
The biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power fizzled after the rebellious mercenary commander who ordered his troops to march on Moscow agreed to go into exile and announced his withdrawal had.
The US has imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence officers overseeing two officials recently indicted by the Justice Department for their involvement in the Kremlin’s attempts to interfere in a US local election.
Germany has appointed a senior MP from one of the country’s ruling parties as its new ambassador to Russia, giving him the tricky diplomatic post amid mounting tensions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Demonstrators in Tbilisi said the bill was inspired by a similar law in Russia, which was used to silence critics. They gathered in front of the parliament building despite being confronted with tear gas and water cannons.
The drafters of the bill claimed it was modeled on the US Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. US law, enacted 80 years ago to uncover Nazi propaganda, requires people to disclose when they lobby in the US on behalf of foreign governments or political entities.
Still, Georgian Dream politicians began backing away from the bill Wednesday night, and Thursday’s discussion of the proposal was canceled.
However, protests continued on Thursday evening and Friday morning. Those gathered said they want to ensure the law is abandoned and secure the release of more than 100 protesters who had previously been arrested.
Georgia’s Interior Ministry reported on Friday it had released all 133 people arrested during mass rallies outside the parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday. Alleged “incidents of violence” at the demonstrations were said to be under investigation.
Pro-EU MPs who opposed the bill unfurled national and EU flags during Friday’s vote. Khatia Dekanoidze, a United National Movement MP, called the bill a “Russian law” and a “dangerous obstacle” to Georgia’s European integration.
“Today is a very important day,” she told The Associated Press. “We did it together with young protesters, young generations, students and Georgian society and it was absolutely amazing how united the society was.”
Mate Gabeshia, a student who attended a rally against the bill on Friday, said “the government understood it had no chance” amid rising popular protests.
In recent years, opposition parties have accused Georgian Dream of pursuing pro-Russian policies while claiming to be Western-leaning. Opponents have accused the party’s founder, former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, of calling the shots despite not currently holding a government post.
The party has repeatedly denied any connection with Russia or any Moscow bias.
Although Georgian Dream and its allies agreed to withdraw the bill, they said the public was misled about the proposal.
“The bill was mislabeled as ‘Russian law,'” the party and its parliamentary allies said in a joint statement on Thursday.
Georgian Dream’s foreign agent bill appeared to be similar to a law passed in Russia in 2012 that was used to shut down or discredit organizations critical of the government and President Vladimir Putin.
Russian officials distanced themselves from Georgia’s legislation on Friday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Moscow had “nothing to do with the bill” and claimed the US was using the opposition to stoke anti-Russian sentiment in Georgia.
Speaking on state television, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared this week’s rallies to the Maidan protests in Ukraine in 2014, which ousted a pro-Kremlin president. Lavrov claimed the bill was “an excuse to launch a violent change of government in Tbilisi.”
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been rocky and complicated since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The two countries fought a brief war in 2008 that ended with Georgia losing control of two pro-Russian separatist regions. Tbilisi had severed diplomatic ties with Moscow and the issue of the regions’ status remains a key nuisance, even if relations have improved somewhat.
Giorgi Badridze, a former Georgian ambassador to the UK and now a senior fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, accused the ruling party of using the bill to sabotage Tbilisi’s prospects for EU membership.
Badridze portrayed the law as part of efforts by former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and his allies to seize state control of media and civil society organizations. He called the introduction of the Foreign Agents Act – and the protests against it – “a moment of truth”.
“This was the moment when Ivanishvili, probably unintentionally, revived a large part of Georgian society and especially the students and youth,” he said.
The European Union agreed in June to make Ukraine and Moldova EU candidate countries, but has been reluctant to do the same for Georgia. The EU heads of state and government referred to the need for reforms in the Black Sea country with 3.7 million inhabitants.
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Vladimir Isachenkov contributed from Moscow.
