The crackdown in Tbilisi comes after lawmakers debated a controversial bill on foreign funding.
Georgian police used tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters as thousands gathered outside parliament in Tbilisi for a third week to oppose a proposed law. A controversial bill on “foreign influence”.
On Tuesday, masked riot police violently suppressed the rally, beating and arresting many people protesting the bill, which Brussels denounced as undermining Georgia’s aspirations to join the European Union.
Lawmakers earlier debated the controversial legislation, which would require organizations receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents.”
The parliamentary session ended without a vote and the debate was expected to resume on Wednesday.
The bill deepened divisions between the ruling Georgian Dream party and the protest movement supported by opposition groups, civil society, celebrities and Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili.
Georgian Dream holds an overwhelming majority in Parliament, allowing it to pass laws and override a presidential veto without needing the support of opposition lawmakers.
Critics have called the bill a “Russian law,” comparing it to Moscow’s “foreign agents” legislation, which has been used to suppress dissent in that country.
Many Georgians hate Russia because of its support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia lost a brief war against Russia in 2008.
The US, UK and EU, which granted Georgia candidate status in December, criticized the bill. European Council President Charles Michel said the bill “is not consistent” with Georgia’s EU candidacy and “will push Georgia away from the EU instead of bringing it closer.”
Tina Khidasheli, who served as Georgia’s defense minister in a Georgian Dream-led government in 2015-2016, attended the protest against her former government colleagues on Tuesday and said she expected protesters end up winning.
“The government is only prolonging the inevitable. We might have serious problems, but in the end the people will return home with victory,” Khidasheli told Reuters news agency.
A government-organized rally in support of the bill on Monday brought together tens of thousands of people, many of whom had been bused in from provincial towns by the ruling party.
Punches were thrown last month in the corridors of Parliament in Tbilisi during discussions on the controversial new law.
