The State Department said on Tuesday it was 'concerned' over the enforcement of Georgia's recently passed controversial "foreign agent" law for "those entities that did not voluntarily register, including civic organizations and independent media," as spokesperson Matthew Miller put it, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
The move came as the Georgian government is poised to take actions — either forcibly register, or impose fines — against organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad, as the deadline for registration under the copycat piece of legislation imported from Moscow, expired on September 2.
In the one-month window provided by the law for voluntary registration, 476 organizations applied to the Ministry of Justice with a registration request, as announced by the country's Justice Ministry.
"The Georgia Government continues to move in a deeply, deeply troubling direction, one that moves the country further away from its Euro-Atlantic trajectory, which the Georgian people, we know, overwhelmingly desire," Miller told a daily briefing.
As part of our comprehensive review of bilateral cooperation between the U.S. States and Georgia that the Secretary Antony Blinken announced early this summer, Washington has implemented visa restrictions on dozens of Georgian individuals and their family members, including members of the Georgian Dream Party, members of parliament, law enforcement, and private citizens, and the State Department has paused $95 million in assistance that directly benefited the Government of Georgia, Miller recalled.
"That review remains ongoing. I would not rule out further actions," the spokesperson concluded.
Local analysts believe that requiring NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents" is a part of the Georgian Dream party's efforts to eliminate dissenting voices ahead of national elections scheduled for October 26, potentially bringing the country closer to Russia.
Politics
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The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OPHRD), a joint program of the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has called for the urgent release of activist Rufat Safarov from prison in Azerbaijan. It has launched a campaign in support of the Azerbaijani human rights defender. https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/arbitrary-detention-and-judicial-harassment-against-rufat-safarov
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This year, the laureate of the annual Nargiz Prize, awarded for efforts in the fight for democracy, was Akif Gurbanov, chairman of the board of the Resplatforma (Platform of the III Republic) movement, who is under arrest.
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The U.S. will prohibit the issuing of visas for nearly a dozen more individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Georgia, bringing the total number to over 100, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
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The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has expressed condolences to the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, following the tragic incident in the city of Magdeburg. "We are deeply shocked by the news of the deaths and injuries resulting from the tragic incident that took place at the Christmas market in Magdeburg," the message reads.
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