Tbilisi: The Councils of Religion and Ethnic Minority at the Ombudsman express their extreme concern about the ongoing legislative process on ‘Foreign Influence Agents’ in the Georgian Parliament, which aims to discredit the whole civil society and create a hostile environment for it.
The proposed bill on Foreign Influence Agents contradicts the indecent will of Georgian citizens regarding integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, the goals expressed in the Constitution of Georgia and human rights. His acceptance will be alarming and destructive to the democratic development of the country.
The initiated bill declares civil society organizations, media, charities and even religious associations as “agents of foreign influence” and cites all their activities and role in society.
It is important that this bill or any similar initiative does not become a law. Any form of law regarding foreign influence agents will cause great damage to the whole country.
The adoption of the law will directly cause the violation of several rights simultaneously, namely freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of religion, infringement of personal life.
The law will prevent the implementation of charity, social, humanitarian, educational, scientific-research, health care, cultural, sports, ecological, agricultural development projects, as well as programs of state or public importance, will affect the beneficiaries of civil society organizations.
It is especially emphasized that the adoption of the bill “about foreign agents” (in any form) will have a severe blow to the whole process of civil integration and the development of a culture of tolerance.
From all this, the adoption of the law on “Foreign Influence Agents” has been considered unacceptable!
Council of religions
• Protestant Church of the Holy Trinity
• Georgian Evangelical – Baptist Church
• Apostolic Administration of Latin Catholicism
• Georgian Evangelistic Church
• The restored Apostolic Church
• Georgian Gospel Faith Church
• Divine Church of the Open Christians
• Community of friends – Quakers
• Armenian Catholic Church of Georgia
• The Baha’i community
• The Highest Religious Administration of Muslims of Georgia
• The army of the salvation
• Georgian Muslim Union
• Georgian Seventh-day Christian Adventist Church
• Evangelical church word of life
• Georgian Isid Spiritual Council
• Evangelical – Protestant Church of Georgia
• Georgian Eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Holy Church
• Ahmadia Muslim Union of Georgia
• Evangelical – Lutheran Church of Georgia
Ethnic Minorities Council
• Elnur Alisoy (Aliev) – Solidarity Museum
• Edgar Bitbunov – Caucasus and Middle East Research Center
• Kerim Gumbatli – Resources of Democracy and Integration
• Alexander Kavtaradze – Georgian Udiya
• Lili Safarova – Women’s Rights Community Initiative
• Zaza Kalashov – Georgian Kurdish Association “Ronai”
• Giorgi Tumasiani – Peace Foundation
• Rashan Ziadaliev – Center for Civic Engagement and Activism
• Samira Ismailova – Civil Equality Platform
• Mari Mikoyan – Generation Ai
• Zaur Khalilov – Civic Integration Foundation
• Baira Bepiev – International Community Caucasian Mosaic
• Raina Beleva – Georgian Bulgarians’ welfare
• Mari Arakelova – Union of Georgian Armenians
• Susana Khachatriani – Armenian Women’s Association of Georgia
• Nona Khangoshvili – Community Union “For Pankisi Welfare”
• Leila Mamedova – Union of Azerbaijani Youth of Georgia
• Agit Mirzoev – Center for Inclusion and Development
• Valentina Marjanishvili – Georgian-Ukrainian press and book house
• Jeikhun Narzalov (Mukhamedal) – Red Bridge
• Arnold Stepaniani – Multilingual Georgia
