Georgian Government is Tightening Legislation, Jeopardizing Free Media and Human Rights

Executive Summary:

• The Georgian government, led by the Georgian Dream party, is implementing stringent new media censoring laws that ban foreign financing and introduce regulations for journalistic ethics.
• Critics fear Georgia’s hard-won free media is endangered as these moves signal the erosion of democratic values and the country’s growing isolation from the West.
• The Georgian government is intensifying its campaign against Western involvement, particularly targeting organizations like USAID. Accusations of foreign interference have been used to discredit Western donors and institutions, with Georgian officials claiming such influence has led to instability in the country.

On February 5, the Republic of Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party announced plans to tighten legislation to minimize Western influence in the country. They announced that the controversial Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence would be nullified (see EDM, April 9, 24, 2024). Instead, a new law resembling the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act will be adopted since many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Georgia do not comply with the so-called “foreign agents” law and refuse to register. Additionally, Georgian Dream announced the creation of a new law on the media and the practical introduction of media censorship by banning foreign financing for media (Facebook/GDMamukaMdinaradze, February 5). For Georgia, one of the greatest achievements in its post-Soviet democratization has been the development of free media, supported by liberal legislation on media and freedom of speech. Georgia, along with the Baltic States, has always been unique among  other countries of the former Soviet Union in this regard. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, however, calls Georgian media “a major source of polarization, incitement of hatred, and dissemination of lies” (Interpressnews.ge, February 8). New legislative initiatives may serve as the end of freedom of speech in Georgia.

Georgian Dream intends to introduce both “standards of journalistic ethics and objectivity” of the media and the creation of “institutional mechanisms for monitoring and protecting these standards” (Facebook/GDMamukaMdinaradze, February 5). This will most likely be analogous to the Belarusian Ministry of Information or  monitoring agencies in authoritarian areas of the post-Soviet space. According to Georgian Dream’s plan, the primary income of Georgian media should come from advertising revenue, despite knowing that the advertising market in Georgia is not large and that private businesses are wary of financing opposition media.

The work of the media and the entire public political sphere will also be negatively affected by the adoption of an amendment to the administrative and criminal legislation. In Georgia, strict sanctions have been introduced for insulting a political official and any state employee (Matsne.gov.ge, February 6). Even though the legislation does not specify what exactly will be considered an insult or a threat, it gives the authorities free rein to fine or even imprison ordinary critics. Administrative detention has increased from 15 days to 60 days to restrict freedom of assembly. This is four times more than in Belarus and twice as much as in Russia (amerikiskhma.com, February 8). The government also announced a tightening of the legislation on public service, and civil servants will be prohibited from receiving financial support, including participation in training or visits at the expense of a foreign fund or the state (Facebook/GDMamukaMdinaradze, February 5).  

Since Georgia’s independence in 1991, Western governments and foundations have been actively reforming the Georgian public sphere through training, education, infrastructure support, and expertise. In this matter, assistance to Georgia has been provided since 1992 by  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (USAID.gov/georgia, accessed February 11). This support has been important for Georgia, particularly in meeting the criteria for joining the European Union (EU) (Ibid; Georgia Today, May 21, 2021; Georgian Public Broadcaster, April 5, 2021; Republic of Georgia, February 21, 2020). The news of the possible closure of the organization caused jubilation for Georgian Dream. For Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, U.S. President Donald Trump administration’s decision to review USAID’s work has been a gift for deepening Georgian Dream’s anti-U.S. propaganda. Speaking on a pro-government television channel, Kobakhidze said, “In many countries, the result of this [U.S.] financing was revolutions, wars, destruction, and many problems” (bm.ge, January 30). Voicing such accusations by a person who once worked for this organization seems curious. According to his official biography, Kobakhidze worked as a regional coordinator of a public education project for USAID in 2000–2001 (Government of Georgia, accessed February 10).

The Georgian government’s crusade against USAID appears absurd in a situation where even the Georgian parliament’s web page was prepared with the help of USAID funding. The official website of the Georgian Parliament features the USAID logo with the inscription: “The website is prepared with USAID support” (Parliament of Georgia, accessed February 10). On February 4, the Chairman of the Georgian Parliament, who, without the help of USAID cannot even ensure the operation of the web page of the institution he leads, demanded an official explanation from USAID regarding why it spent $41.7 million on funding “political engines” in Georgia, which “are the initiators of turning the elections upside down” (1tv.ge, February 4).

Accusations of USAID preparing a state coup are not new for Georgian Dream in the last two to three years. They have often used this topic to stigmatize Western donors. In 2003, the country’s security service launched an investigation into the preparation of a coup involving USAID, although the results of this investigation are still unknown (Formulanews.ge, October 2, 2023).

On February 3, the head of the Georgian Dream parliamentary faction, Mamuka Mdinaradze, directly accused the U.S. Embassy of involvement in the anti-government mass protests in Georgia, which have been going on for three months now (Facebook/GDMamukaMdinaradz, February 3). The U.S. Embassy responded, “Mr. Mdinaradze’s statements today are categorically false and demonstrate a lack of understanding of what the United States Embassy does to support President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio’s top priorities of making America safer, stronger and more prosperous” (US Embassy Tbilisi, Georgia, February 3).

Another step Georgian Dream has taken is announcing that several employees of the Georgian Ministry of Defense will be fired from their jobs. The same is happening in the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Georgian Bureau for Civil Service, which is responsible for recruiting personnel for the civil service, has already been abolished (Civil.ge, February 3, 2025. Notably, many of these personnel have a Western education, mainly from the United States, and Georgian Dream wants to eliminate Western influence among civil servants. To ensure the process of mass dismissal from the civil service, Georgian Dream introduced several amendments to the law on the civil service in December 2024 after hundreds of civil servants spoke out against the government’s decision to suspend the country’s European integration (Parliament of Georgia, December 13, 2024).

Representatives of the Human Rights Watch have already indicated that with the new legislative changes, Georgian Dream is creating a human rights crisis in the country and is taking all necessary steps towards authoritarianism (Amerikiskhma.com, February 8). Georgian Dream clearly does not intend to back down from confrontation not only with the West but also with its population and is almost weekly approving new laws to, on the one hand, reduce, in their words, the “negative influence of the West” and, on the other hand, strengthen its power, the legitimacy of which is disputed both in the country and abroad.