Eka Gigauri is used to harsh words from officials about the anti-corruption work she does in Georgia. But seeing her face on posters, accusing her of being an agent of foreign influence, a traitor and a spy, rattled her.

Gigauri, who leads one of Georgia’s main anti-corruption campaign groups, says she and many others have been targeted in connection with a new law, pushed through parliament by the government.

The “foreign influence” law requires media, civil society groups and nonprofit organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. It also subjects them to intense state scrutiny and imposes steep fines for noncompliance.

The government argues the law is needed to curb harmful foreign actors trying to destabilize the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million. Many journalists and activists say its true goal is to stigmatize them and restrict debate before an election scheduled for October. It could also threaten Georgia’s bid to join the European Union.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    Seems pretty common for the whole of Eurasia. Europeans even do it to each other. English-speakers call the country in the middle of Europe Germany, the French call it Allemagne, the Finnish call it Saksa, the Poles call it Niemcy, and the people who live there call Deutschland.

    (To top it off, Wikipedia tells me that the Lakota Sioux tribe of indigenous Americans call it Iyášiča Makȟóčhe, which means “Bad Speaker Land.”)