Georgia's leader says a divisive media bill passed by lawmakers is unacceptable and she'll veto it

Just found this interesting background explainer article about the Bill: "In Georgia, Russian émigrés see familiar Kremlin tactics" france24 art

" This law is reminiscent of legislation that came into force in Russia about ten years ago which initially targeted human rights NGOs financed by Western countries and gradually turned into a powerful tool of political repression."

Can anybody explain the difference to the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the USA and why one (America’s of course) is within Western democratic values and the other is not?

I think it’s a quite valuable information which countries are taking part in the opinion forming in my country and on who's side of the political spectrum in my country they’re acting on.

I just read a lot of articles about the Russian Law in Western media and not one mentions its similarities to the American law.

I know that Russia puts a lot of effort into supporting rightwing and leftwing organizations in the Western world. Although it’s disgusting I understand that it’s in their interest. They are definitely not the good ones and it’s our task to stop that influence.

I am sure that we are doing the same all over the world but nobody’s talking about except Russia. We are not the good ones, too.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In an interview with The Associated Press, Zourabichvili harshly criticized the ruling Georgian Dream party for pushing the bill that also is widely seen setting back Georgia’s aspirations to join the European Union.

The bill, passed Tuesday, requires media, nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofit groups to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.

Huge crowds of protesters have blocked streets in the capital of Tbilisi and milled angrily outside the parliament building after lawmakers approved the measure 84-30 despite strong criticism from the U.S and the EU.

The opposition has denounced the bill as “the Russian law” because Moscow uses similar legislation to crack down on independent news media, nonprofits and activists critical of the Kremlin.

Zourabichvili emphasized that after Georgia received the status of a candidate last fall to join the EU, the government should have focused on passing the necessary laws to qualify for the launch of accession talks at the end of the year.

Zourabichvili said it’s hard to say whether the bill was the ruling party’s initiative or if Moscow had played any role in its passage, but she emphasized that the Kremlin is unhappy with Georgia’s pro-Western aspirations.

The original article contains 764 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!