In Georgia, campaign groups and independent media say a new law purportedly to curb “foreign influence” represents an existential threat to them.

Eka Gigauri is used to harsh words from officials about the anti-corruption work she does in Georgia. But seeing her face on posters, accusing her of being an agent of foreign influence, a traitor and a spy, rattled her.

Gigauri, who leads one of Georgia’s main anti-corruption campaign groups, says she and many others have been targeted in connection with a new law, pushed through parliament by the government.

The “foreign influence” law requires media, civil society groups and nonprofit organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. It also subjects them to intense state scrutiny and imposes steep fines for noncompliance.

The government argues the law is needed to curb harmful foreign actors trying to destabilize the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million. Many journalists and activists say its true goal is to stigmatize them and restrict debate before an election scheduled for October. It could also threaten Georgia’s bid to join the European Union.

  • Skua
    17•5 months ago

    The people of the country Georgia call their country Sakartvelo, equivalent to “Kartvelia” in English. If the US state ever somehow becomes independent I guess we have a fallback for the country

    The whole region around Georgia is strangely full of names that modern English speakers associate with other regions. Way back in the late antiquity period there were kingdoms of Iberia and Albania there, neither of which had anything to do with the places we call Iberia or Albania today

    • Flying SquidMEnglish
      16•5 months ago

      Seems pretty common for the whole of Eurasia. Europeans even do it to each other. English-speakers call the country in the middle of Europe Germany, the French call it Allemagne, the Finnish call it Saksa, the Poles call it Niemcy, and the people who live there call Deutschland.

      (To top it off, Wikipedia tells me that the Lakota Sioux tribe of indigenous Americans call it Iyášiča Makȟóčhe, which means “Bad Speaker Land.”)