Tbilisi: Baia Pataraia, the head of Georgia’s leading women’s rights group, woke up late last week to find her home in the capital Tbilisi covered in posters with the words “foreign agent”.
Pictures were also posted on the stairs leading to the front door, which had “eating lesbians” spray-painted in orange graffiti.
“My neighbor threw them, it was an amazing feeling,” said Pataraya.
Activists, independent journalists and opposition politicians have faced violence and intimidation for weeks since the government of the former Soviet republic introduced a bill targeting civil society organizations last month.
But rights watchdogs and Western governments warned that it could damage Tbilisi’s path to the European Union and exacerbate tensions in the Caucasus country, which has been polarized since gaining independence from the USSR in 1991.
He rejected the notion that he was a threat to Bataraya. Sapari Group supports women suffering from domestic violence and discrimination.
In the months before the law was passed on Tuesday, Pataraya said the government had been cracking down on NGOs and campaigning against them in the media.
But NGOs like Pataraya are against it.
“I will never be registered as a foreign agent,” he told AFP.
The law has sparked public protests for weeks because of its similarities to a repressive law first passed by the Kremlin, known as the “Russian Law”.
If implemented, organizations or media groups that receive at least a fifth of their funding from abroad must be listed as “foreign influence”.
Pataraia has been targeted by similar posters before. When the Georgian Dream ruling party first tried to pass the law last year, pictures of his face and the word “turn” were posted around Tbilisi metro stations.
“But this is the first time they have come to our house.”
Failure to register with the authorities means possible fines or imprisonment.
Outside the Georgia headquarters of Transparency International, an anti-corruption NGO, there is a similar poster threatening the organization’s local head, Eka Gigauri.
Gigauri, an outspoken critic of the Georgian government, was not surprised.
“That means they can freeze our assets,” the 46-year-old said.
Transparency International has been working in Georgia for 24 years, as have many Western-funded groups that emerged after Tbilisi’s independence.
Gigauri said the group was targeted because of reports of robberies in Georgia and would never agree to be labeled agents or insiders.
While authorities have indicated that the main target of the bill is law enforcement agencies, foreign-funded NGOs have played an important role in supporting other humanitarian causes.
On the outskirts of Tbilisi, Nato Shavkaladze wonders how safe houses for women escaping domestic violence can survive if the law is enforced.
Walking through a modest building for about 20 women, she told AFP that one floor had been renovated with funds from the Polish embassy, while the other was financed by Japan.
While speaking, the children ran to find the baby lying in the next room.
Georgian NGOs are heavily dependent on foreign grants, and the group receives only 20 percent of domestic funding.
“If we are not taken into account, we will cease to be possible,” said Shavkaladze.
On the other side of Tbilisi, Sara Modzmanashvili-Kemecsei is thinking about how she can keep the dog shelter alive.
“We are celebrated for doing something for the benefit of the whole community.”
She brought a box with her teenage daughter, an active participant in the protest.
“It’s not about transparency.
When asked what he thinks about Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire supporter of “Georgian Dream” accusing the NGO of a revolutionary conspiracy, he said: “I want him to come with me as a dog and see how we work to change the power.”
He pointed to the dog.
‘We will never register’: Georgia NGOs vow to defy repressive law
