NGOs announced today that "on June 17, the Ivanishvili-Kuprashvili Bureau began enforcing unconstitutional Russian laws through the Murusidze court." This statement was made during a briefing at the Civil Society Foundation. The Anti-Corruption Bureau has initiated proceedings against five organizations: Civil Society Foundation, Transparency International Georgia, Sapari, Georgia’s Future Academy, and Economic Policy Research Center.
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"They are demanding personal information from us, human rights defenders, without any legal basis. This includes personal numbers, names, surnames, photographs, financial and banking information, and health status information of the citizens under our protection – victims of torture, women who are victims of violence, students, teachers, pensioners, people with disabilities, entrepreneurs, whistleblowers, journalists, observers, illegally dismissed public servants, and their family members. This is information from everyone who trusted us and received our help.
We won’t betray the trust of the citizens under our protection, even if it leads to our persecution and imprisonment. We will not hand over information about people oppressed by the Ivanishvili regime to the Russian regime.
We will pursue legal instruments against these orders. Their goal is clear to us: Ivanishvili is trying to destroy Georgia's free civil society, just as the Bolsheviks did in the 1920s, and as the Putin and Lukashenka regimes have done in the last decade. We reiterate that we will not live by Russian laws, we will not accept the sabotage of Georgia's European future, and we will continue to fight for the rights of the Georgian people," said Ketevan Khutsishvili, director of the Civil Society Foundation.
On April 1, Georgian Dream adopted the Foreign Agents Registration Act, also known as FARA. This law applies to any individual or legal entity that receives foreign funding. Besides fines, the Foreign Agents Registration Act also stipulates imprisonment for 6 months to 5 years as a penalty. The so-called law is to be enforced by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
The Georgian Dream’s FARA violates the Constitution of Georgia and aims to silence, discredit, and persecute independent civil society organizations and media, including through the imposition of criminal liability.
The Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, Studio Monitor, and Georgian News, along with their heads, have appealed the Foreign Agents Registration Act (the so-called FARA) in the Constitutional Court. The authors of the constitutional lawsuit are demanding the annulment of the law adopted by Georgian Dream and the suspension of the relevant articles until the dispute is resolved. The constitutional lawsuit has been submitted to the Plenum of the Constitutional Court for consideration.
