The Speaker of the Georgian Parliament claimed the controversial domestic bill on transparency of foreign influence “does not even come close” to a similar law in the US in terms of “strictness” of its regulations.

His comments followed after Matthew Miller, the Spokesperson for the US Department of State, rejected parallels between the legislative pieces in the 2 countries by saying “when you see the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act, it is to people who are acting on behalf of a foreign government, not people who are doing legitimate NGOs work”.

“Activities of Giuli Alasania [mother of Mikheil Saakashvili] and David Kezerashvili [the wanted former Defence Minister in the United National Movement Government], had been recorded in a FARA register.

It is probably not disputed that neither one nor the other have been ‘persons acting on behalf of the Government of Georgia’ for 12 years now… It was this kind of superficiality and untruthful information that is encouraging radical groups in the country. Let’s keep in mind that the Georgian transparency law cannot even come close to the American one in terms of the strictness of the regulations. It does not apply to natural persons, does not consider criminal liability, etc”, - said Shalva Papuashvili.