The Daily Beat: 25 March
The ruling Georgian Dream party introduced a constitutional bill on the “protection of family values and underaged persons,” curtailing LGBT rights, a move seen by opponents as an attempt to boost its popularity ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. A draft constitutional law would ban sex changes and adoption by same-sex couples, as well as prohibiting “gatherings aimed at popularizing same-sex family or intimate relationships.”
In a Facebook post, the Tbilisi Pride LGBT rights organization called the proposed bill “homophobic,” adding that “No one can resist love.” Opposition representatives also reacted to the ruling party’s initiative, claiming that the Georgian Dream’s anti-LGBT agenda is an attempt to shore up its support among conservatives and distract voters from economic problems ahead of parliamentary elections due in late October.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze visited Armenia, where he met with Armenia’s President Vahagn Khachaturyan and the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, discussing bilateral cooperation in various areas, regional developments, as well as peace and security matters. Following the meeting, the prime ministers held a joint briefing and opened the new Georgian Embassy building in Yerevan. Later in the day, Prime Minister Kobakhidze laid a wreath at the memorial of Armenians who died in 1915.
The Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of another Georgian fighter, Tengiz Chania, in Ukraine, bringing the unofficial death toll of Georgian fighters fighting on the Ukrainian side since the Russian invasion to 47. According to local media, Chania, who has been fighting in Ukraine since the very beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against the country, was killed by a Russian shell explosion near the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region.
Judicial Conference, a self-governing body of the Georgian judiciary, “unanimously supported” the statement made by the Supreme Court on March 11, denouncing the EU-proposed initiative to check the integrity of judges through an extraordinary “vetting” mechanism. In its statement, the Supreme Court argued that the extraordinary “vetting” mechanism “would undermine the independence of the judiciary and the individual judges” as well as “the public trust towards the judicial system,” thus “facilitating political control” over the judiciary.
On March 22, the Council of Europe’s Expert Council on NGO Law published a study on the stigmatization of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), reporting a “widespread and concerning pattern” of NGO stigmatization. According to the survey, Georgian NGOs have reported stigmatization by public authorities or high-ranking politicians from the ruling party against those working on the rights of religious minorities, women’s rights, and watchdog NGOs focused on anti-corruption and investigative journalism
