A female lawmaker hit a male colleague with a water bottle inside Georgia’s parliament as blood flared again during debate on the controversial “foreign agents” bill.
In videos shown by local media, Katia Dekanoitze, who is close to the opposition, can be seen hitting Guram Matsarasvili on the head with what looks like a plastic bottle while he shouts and wags the finger at her.
More protests are planned in Georgia this week against a bill that would require organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to be registered as “foreign agents.” Opponents of the bill call it authoritarian and “Russian-inspired” but the ruling Georgian Dream party says it is necessary to ensure transparency in the funding of non-governmental organisations.
The European Union has repeatedly said the bill jeopardizes Georgia’s path to joining the bloc. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said Moscow had nothing to do with the bill.
The official broadcast of the meeting was interrupted shortly after today’s incident. Matsarasvili, who is close to the “Georgian Dream”, was not injured. Local media reported that 14 opposition MPs were expelled from the chamber.
Georgian lawmakers had also come to blows in an earlier debate on the bill this month.
A pro-government demonstration outside parliament is planned for tonight, while the opposition is organizing its own rally in a park about 5km away. A senior ruling party official said, according to local media, that “Georgian Dream” is helping supporters by covering their travel costs to attend the demonstration. But he insisted that they will be there of their own free will.
🇬🇪 Consideration of the draft #law on foreign agents, which is taking place in the #Georgian parliament, is accompanied by altercations between representatives of the authorities and the opposition.#CaliberAz #Georgia #parliament pic.twitter.com/r1hp5lLZah
— Caliber English (@CaliberEnglish) April 29, 2024
Georgian President Salome Zourabisvili, who opposes the bill but whose role is largely ceremonial, said in a post on Platform X that the government demonstration was a “Putin-style act: civil servants are being bussed to Tbilisi to applaud the decisions of the ruling party”.
Main streets were closed to buses carrying protesters while screens and floodlights were set up along the main Rustaveli Avenue ahead of the rally. A female MP hit a male colleague with a water bottle inside the Georgian parliament as the lights were turned on again. bloodshed during the debate on the controversial “foreign agents” bill.
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