“Russia is our enemy!” | Georgia protests erupt in violence against Kremlin-like “foreign agent” law

“Russia is our enemy!” | Georgia protests erupt in violence against Kremlin-like “foreign agent” law

[Applause]
so I’m standing in front of Georgia’s
Parliament building in the capital tii
where for the last few weeks the
governing Georgian Dream party has been
attempting to force through a package of
new laws that many people here fear will
derail their chances of joining the EU
barely 6 months after Brussels handed
this house this country uh candidates
status and paved its way to joining the
block specifically the government is
introducing two bills one that it says
will criminalize what it describes as
LGBT propaganda and the other that will
require Civil Society organizations like
Charities NOS campaign groups and
independent local media Outlets that
receed more than 20% of their funding
from abroad to register as quote unquote
foreign agents for many people that’s
reminiscent of the exact rules that
Russia has used to try and squeeze out
the shut down civil society and Target
activists and so what we’ve seen is for
the last few weeks thousands and
thousands of ordinary Georgians have
come out to the streets of the capital
to protest both against these laws and
and in favor of joining the European
Union something which their own
government claims to want to do tomorrow
and next week I hope that we will be
part of Europe I hope we will have a
free choice and I hope no one no one
will stop going to this uh free and
peaceful protest against our government
and against the people who are still in
the mind that Russia is a great friend
to us no they are not a great friend to
us they are our enemies at the
opposition protests they tell me that
they’re really worried about the
direction the country is taking they say
we want to go down the European path
instead the government is taking us down
the path towards Russia and very few
here want that to want that to happen
those that I’ve met at prover rallies uh
have told me well you know for us it’s a
question of kind of Georgian B vales
versus European values what’s so bad if
we pass a law that requires NGS to uh
disclose their financing but in reality
of course most people understand that
the EU has made it very clear that this
would be a roadblock to their common
goal of joining the European Union uh
and as a result there’s a great deal of
kind of concern I think about the
direction that the country is taking so
last night thousands and thousands of
people assembled right here outside
Georgia’s Parliament building calling
for the government to drop this bill and
what we saw was the most extreme
escalation since the start of this route
with Riot police moving in deploying
tear gas firing canisters into the air
and using riot shields to force back
what was otherwise a peaceful
demonstration uh all across the streets
people were running for cover trying to
get away uh we’ve seen we’ve seen a huge
number of uh reports of people being
violently beaten by the authorities uh
as well as around 60 arrests have been
confirmed among them senior opposition
figure who says he was beaten by police
uh and has posted picture of himself
with swollen eye and missing teeth uh
and he actually appeared today in
Parliament again uh you know with his
face in bandages to continue to try and
oppose this foreign agent law so polls
consistently show that the vast majority
of Georgians are in favor of joining the
European Union around 75 to 85% of the
country consistently says that’s what
they want to do that’s what they aspire
to for the E iic benefits that it brings
but also because in Georgia a country
that fought a war with Russia just in
2008 where many people have in living
memory experiened Russian or Soviet
repression uh the idea of closing up to
Moscow instead of the West is absolutely
unacceptable however Georgian Dream has
maintained a kind of duw track foreign
policy refusing to implement Western
sanctions on Russia since the start of
the fullscale war in Ukraine uh and
actually deepening trade ties with the
Kremlin despite that overwhelming
support among the public for both closer
integration with the rest of Europe but
also for Ukraine itself um and as a
result the government has tried to tell
people look we have your best interests
at heart we still want to join the EU
but solely on our terms and that means
not accepting what they characterize as
things like non-traditional
relationships between same-sex couples
uh it means not accepting having to
impose sanctions on Russia which they
refuse to do a large number of uh
Georgian Dream politicians and their
better factors maintain significant
business Empires close uh economic
relations with Russia and are extremely
cautious about anything that would move
their country out of its orbit but
that’s obviously not what people want to
hear right here and so uh bzen Ivan ASV
the enigmatic oligarch a former prime
minister who founded the Georgian Dream
party uh he appeared just a few days ago
again right here in front of the
Parliament building to try and convince
people that Georgia would join the EU by
the end of this decade but that’s not
what we’re hearing from Brussels uh
we’ve had uh the eu’s top Diplomat
Joseph borell uh saying that the foreign
agent law is incompatible with European
values a spokesperson a spokesperson for
the commission told Politico the
government has to withdraw that bill if
it’s not going to derail the membership
process so while this discussion is
about Civil Society actually for many
people it’s about much wider question of
do we want to seek closer relations with
the European Union or do we want to seek
closer relations with Russia and for
those people around me and indeed for
the people who have been pulled year
after year and said that they continue
to believe in in in their European
Ambitions the answer is very
clear so the big figure of people’s Fury
here isn’t actually the Prime Minister
it isn’t actually the leader the formal
leader of Georgian Dream parliamentary
party it’s an oligarch by the name of
bidzina Ivan ASV who has for uh for
years been been the kind of eminent
grease of Georgian politics he founded
the Georgian Dream party he was the
Prime Minister and then for the last few
years to hear georgean dream politicians
tell it he’s retired he’s just a
concerned businessman but his personal
wealth is estimated to be 30 40 50% of
the entire country’s GDP and he’s always
been known to maintain significant
personal control and influence over the
party that he founded now one of the
eu’s conditions for Georg joining the EU
was that uh Georgia would go about a
process of deol aration which could only
really have meant reducing bid Ian’s
power and a few months ago bidzina
despite the insistence that he was just
a private citizen concerned about the
fate of the country he made a dramatic
reappearance and became the chairman of
the Georg and dream party effectively
inoculating him against claims that he
was kind of the puppet master from on
high making himself seem like a
legitimate politician who’s actively
engaged in Civic life in his country of
course no one’s voted for him no one can
vote him out but he’s maintained
significant control and bzen Ian uh made
the vast majority of his wealth in
Russia through a series of businesses
he’s consistently funded causes that he
believes in or that uh Advan his
interests and I think what a lot of
people here believe is that while he
started off as a potentially you know
Center left populist his politics was
much more about getting the government
of the day out than it was about kind of
a geopolitical struggle for Georgia
between East and West I think what a lot
of people have seen is that his rhetoric
has changed a lot in recent years and is
increasingly paranoid he gave a
conspiratorial speech right here uh
earlier this week where he claimed that
a kind of global war party uh citing a
kind of popular online conspiracy theory
had provoked Russia to invade Ukraine uh
and actually the people I was standing
with at the time who’d been bust in a
lot of them are public servants who were
told to come and show support there was
a bit of confusion because people
remember what it’s like to fight a war
with Russia you know very few families
in Georgia weren’t touched by the
violence of the 2008 conflict and very
few have any time for any justification
of moscow’s fullscale War on Ukraine
well it’s very easy to speculate about
the Georgian government’s motives Behind
These bill it’s very difficult to know
for sure but what we do know is that
Russia has expressed satisfaction at the
idea that this foreign agent bill would
come into force uh I think it sees that
as an as an example of Georgia slipping
away from uh the kind of broader
European community and closer towards
its own orbit copying rules nearly
exactly that the Kremlin itself has
deployed Russian foreign minister Sergey
lav as well as the far-right demagogue
often called Putin’s brain Alexander
Dugan they’ve expressed support for
these rules and that’s obviously given a
lot of people pause for thought about
well if they support this bill what does
it mean in practice for us because we’ve
seen what they’ve done to their country
and many Georgians don’t want to import
that here and actually just today in the
Parliamentary hearings over the foreign
agent Bill uh an opposition
parliamentarian was actually expelled
from the chamber just for asking a
question about Dugan’s support for this
law in many ways the foreign agent law
is nothing new the Georgian Dream party
tried to introduce the same rules last
year and it was forced to definitely
sheld them amid massive public out uh
outcry amid condemnation from the
International Community and so the
people who continuously turn out day
after day night after night leaving
their homes to try and uh call on the
government to park these rules they’re
very much hoping that they can repeat
the same thing they did last time uh but
I think what’s very clear and
increasingly so to foreign politicians
as well is that Georgia’s PA to the EU
looks increasingly troubled um and so
without a really clear message from the
public without a change of course in
government or indeed a change of
government it’s quite possible that that
accession process will begin to slow
down Brussels has uh Brussels has given
Georgia a series of reforms that it has
to has to make in order to begin
accession talks it says it’s not made
enough progress on that and while other
candidate countries like Ukraine and
mova have been able to move forward and
start practically talking about how
they’re going to join the European Union
Georgia is at risk of being left
behind for

“Russia is our enemy!”

Gabriel Gavin reports from Georgia following violent protests in Tbilisi against a Kremlin-like “foreign agent” law.

📻 Listen to Times Radio – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio

📍 Subscribe to our channel – http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTjDhFuGXlhx9Us0gq0VK2w?sub_confirmation=1

🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/radio-3for3/

📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-to-listen-to-times-radio/app