I will say that we are disappointed to see that the Parliament of Georgia override the veto of the President of Georgia on the anti-democratic “foreign agents” bill, although the vote was not unexpected, – White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing, answering a question about what President Joe Biden’s message is to the Georgian people.
“We saw tens of thousands of Georgians protesting this bill last week, one of the largest protests in Georgia’s history, and we know that many Georgians have made their opposition clear. This legislation requires civil society organizations to register as agents of a foreign government simply because they receive 20% of their funding from abroad. Civil society organizations play an important role in maintaining democracy, and creating this burden undermines their ability to do so. Suppressing civil society is what authoritarian governments do, and it is a weapon and tactic to suppress dissent. That’s not what democracies do, so we’re disappointed to see what happened,” the White House Press Secretary said.
The Parliament overrode the President’s veto on the law “On transparency of foreign influence”. The draft law presented by the Georgian Dream faction and vetoed by Salome Zurabishvili was supported by 84 votes.
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