Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters
Police officers provide security as lawmakers drive into parliament during a protest against a proposed “foreign agents” bill in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 13, 2024.
CNN
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The US State Department will implement new visa restriction policies in response to repressive laws and a crackdown on protests in Georgia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Thursday.
Blinken said he hopes Georgian leaders will reconsider the so-called “foreign agents” bill and said the new visa policy would target “individuals responsible for or complicit in undermining Georgia’s democracy, and their family members.”
“This includes individuals who have suppressed civil society and freedom of peaceful assembly in Georgia through campaigns of violence and intimidation,” Blinken said in a statement. The United States would also launch a review of its bilateral cooperation with Georgia, Blinken added.
The move came about a week after Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed a bill that would have required organizations that get more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” and face fines for not doing so.
The country’s parliament can still override her veto with a simple majority vote.
The Georgian parliament approved the bill on May 14, with 84 lawmakers voting in favor and 30 opposed, despite widespread opposition across the country. The ruling Georgian Dream party, which sponsored the bill, claims it promotes transparency and national sovereignty, but critics say it is modeled on a Russian law used to suppress dissent.
“This law is fundamentally Russian in its essence and spirit and goes against our country’s constitution and all European standards,” President Zurabishvili said after vetoing the bill.
The European Union has warned that the bill, if passed, could jeopardize Georgia’s chances of joining the bloc. The tiny country, nestled in the Caucasus Mountains, applied to join the bloc in 2022 and was granted candidate status late last year.
The bill has met with resistance both inside and outside of parliament. Thousands of people marched in the Georgian capital in opposition to the bill. Fights and shouting matches broke out while the bill was debated. Undercover police officers clashed with crowds shortly after the bill was passed.
President Zourabisvili told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last week that elections scheduled for October would give people the chance to “overturn” the bill.
“To win elections you should use social cohesion and party unity because that’s the European way,” she said.
CNN’s Michael Rios Ekaterine Kadagishvili, Joshua Berlinger, Jesse Gretener, Amy Cassidy contributed to this report.
