Georgia's Parliament passes "Foreign Elements" bill despite widespread protests
The Parliament of Georgia has approved the controversial bill called "Foreign Elements", according to which non-governmental organizations in the country, which receive more than 20% of their budget from abroad, must be registered as "foreign elements."
According to the ruling party of Georgia, which holds the majority of the country's parliament, announced that this bill is necessary for the transparency of the activities of non-governmental organizations and to prevent "the infiltration of foreign agents ."
The opposition and Western countries consider this bill similar to a law in Russia, which helped the government of that country to ban the activities of many media and non-governmental organizations whose budgets were partly or entirely financed from outside Russia's borders, and by based on it to intensify the suppression of independent media .
The adoption of this law comes after several weeks of intense and widespread protests in Georgia, which were accompanied by clashes between protesters and police officials, as well as numerous arrests. Protests, in which tens of thousands of people took to the streets and expressed their anger and dissatisfaction with this bill.
