The Principal Deputy Spokesman of the U.S. State Department Vedant Patel said that “the concerns that we had about this legislation continue to be very real and they continue to be very serious” when asked about the Georgian government moving forward with the implementation of the Foreign Agents law during the during the July 30 briefing at the State Department.
“This is, frankly, legislation that looks like it’s right out of the Kremlin’s playbook, a targeting of humanitarian organizations, NGOs, human rights defenders, journalists. And so this is something we’ll certainly be paying close attention to, but I don’t have any updates beyond that,” Patel said.
On July 29, Justice Minister Rati Bregadze published a decree creating a special Department for Financial Reporting under the National Agency for Public Registry and granting the agency the right to act to implement the controversial law on Foreign Agents passed in May of this year. Bregadze also stated that NGOs will have the opportunity to register as organizations representing foreign interests as of August 1. If they fail to do so, as many NGOs in Georgia have promised to do, they will have to pay a fine of GEL 25,000 (about USD 9,200) and will be subject to “forced registration”.
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