Parliament Speaker: freedom of expression “ensured” in Georgia

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday said freedom of expression was “ensured” by authorities in the country with an ability to “gather and express opinions”, in reference to a planned rally outside the Parliament in Tbilisi next Monday in support of the controversial bill on the transparency of foreign influence.

The ruling Georgian Dream party on Monday announced the rally would be held “to say yes to transparency”, amid ongoing protests against the reintroduced legislative piece.

Papuashvili also said the Parliament made decisions on legislative issues while ensuring “all opinions” were represented “with the same weight they are represented in the public”.

Democracy implies exactly that the desire of the majority of the population of Georgia should become a law. There is an attempt to do the opposite - for the minority to impose its own opinion on the majority - and this is certainly undemocratic", he claimed.

The first reading of the bill, which calls for the registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they derive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad was supported last week by 83 MPs, on the backdrop of public protests and criticism by some of the country’s foreign partners.

The Parliament will return to the second reading of the legislative piece in a session next week.