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Despite the promises that have been made that the Law on Transparency will not be tried again, it was introduced last year, said today the EU Ambassador to Georgia.
“This law, which is now called Transparency and used to be called Foreign Agents or Foreign Spy law, was attempted 2 years ago. The ruling party under pressure from Georgians here on the streets, as well as the international community, decided to withdraw this law two years ago.
Again, and despite the promises that have been made that this law will not be tried again, it was introduced last year. Again, you had a huge wave of protests on the streets of every major city in Georgia, you had practically every partner of Georgia, representatives of EU institutions, representatives of EU member states, representatives of like-minded countries, representatives of all international organizations, telling Georgian Dream, please don’t do it.
Despite of all us telling them not to do it, the Georgian parliament voted to introduce this law. International legal experts, the Venice Commission, provided an expertise – 30 pages of arguments on why this law would restrict freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, why this law would crush civil society, why this law would force people who are trying to improve Georgia, to make a better life for Georgians to go into exile. Unfortunately, this law has been introduced.
We have said from the very beginning, that there will be consequences. We cannot let it go and precisely this is what is happening now. And let me say the final word on this.
I think you had 2 main reasons for Georgia in the past to be a model to all other enlargement countries and to be a leader when it comes to the enlargement process. It was a vibrant civil society and professional administration. What is happening now is that the vibrant civil society is being destroyed by this law. And with many people, civil servants, the best the Georgian administration has, being dismissed, being kicked out of work or voluntarily resigning, the 2 main pillars of previous successes of Georgia, are being very seriously damaged”, - said Paweł Herczyński.