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Activists and journalists who protested a controversial new “foreign agent” law in Georgia have been targeted in a relentless intimidation campaign in recent days, replete with threatening calls, harassment, intimidation, suspected stalking, and even physical attacks.
Some say they have been stalked at their homes, while others say they and their families have received intimidating phone calls from anonymous callers. Several activists say they have been physically assaulted.
Levan Tsutskiridze, the executive director for the Eastern European Centre for Multiparty Democracy—who has been protesting the so-called Russian law for weeks—said that saboteurs covered the outside of his office with threatening graffiti and posters calling him a “foreign agent.” The next day, the saboteurs covered the entrance to his apartment with graffiti and threatening posters as well.
In addition to being targeted at his own home, Tsutskiridze also began receiving alarming phone calls—which, on occasion, appeared to suggest that he would be dead soon—from anonymous numbers. Soon enough, his wife and 24-year-old daughter also began receiving intimidating phone calls, he said.
Georgian activist Ketevan Chachava, the deputy executive director at the Tbilisi-based Center for Development and Democracy (CDD) recounted stories of physical assault and psychological intimidation other activists had suffered in recent days.
It’s “a chilling echo of Soviet-era vilification in a bid to break the protesters’ spirit,” Chachava said.
The intimidation calls are widespread, according to Laura Thornton, senior vice president of democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
“I didn’t talk to… a single NGO leader who had not received some sort of phone call,” Thornton told The Daily Beast, adding that many others have been doxxed—or had their personal information leaked online—or beaten up. “It’s on steroids right now.”
Georgia’s “foreign agent” law would require organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign parties to disclose it and label themselves as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” While some lawmakers in Georgia claim that the law would ferret out foreign funding and be helpful for “transparency,” U.S. officials and members of civil society in Georgia argue it will stifle freedom of the press and association.
Activists fear that the law will ultimately shackle the future of Georgia—which has traditionally been known as one of the more pro-Western states emerging from the dissolution of the Soviet Union—to Russia, where a similar “foreign agent” law has long been in effect.
“The law is just a symptom of something deeper,” Thornton said. “Georgia has moved away from its allies, its former allies, which was... the European Union and the United States, and has forged a new direction.”
The intimidation campaign comes as activists have been flooding the streets of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to demonstrate against the proposal, facing off with authorities and tear gas. Back in April, the parliament even broke out into a brawl over the proposal. It was signed into law on Monday, after lawmakers overrode a presidential veto of the bill late last month.
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Tsutskiridze has accused Nino Tsilosani, a leading lawmaker in the Georgian Dream Party—which controls parliament—of helping orchestrate the harassment campaign against him by singling him out and disclosing his apartment address.
“There is actively some surveillance on all of us, but I know it could not have been done without a high level of organization, high level of access to information,” he said. “To the best of my knowledge, no single person apprehended, questioned—nothing.”
Giorgi Oniani, the deputy executive director of Transparency International, recounted to The Daily Beast an attack of vandalism on his apartment and car. His case is particular in that he says he shares a building with the Prime Minister. But the night of the attack, he says, the cameras were conveniently broken and the authorities’ response was remarkably slow, even given the location.
“The police, which refused to come to the crime scene for more than 24 hours, obviously could not find the perpetrators,” Oniani told The Daily Beast.
Another activist, Natia Kuprashvili, the director of the Georgian Association of Regional Broadcasters, also received four calls from an unknown actor threatening her and telling her they had her address and were waiting for her downstairs at her apartment, according to Interpressnews.
Gia Japiridze, a former diplomat and current professor at the University of Georgia’s Department of International Relations and Political Science, told The Daily Beast he was brutally beaten in the street after returning home from an event last month, after receiving threatening phone calls.
After leaving a reception late one night in May, Japiridze said he felt something was “off” as he parked his car near his home and began walking toward his doorstep.
“I always try to look around before leaving my car, I’m always careful…” he said, detailing years of training on diplomatic security as a former diplomat. “I saw just one person, one young man moving in the opposite direction.” Japiridze said he was then ambushed by multiple men who had apparently been hiding with baseball bats.
“I felt blows from behind from both sides,” he told The Daily Beast. They began “beating me from all sides,” forcing him to the ground, he said. One of them yelled at him for not supporting the “foreign agent” law. “I tried to defend myself but they continued beating me by foot and by baseball bat.”
“Of course these attacks are organized by the ruling party, they have these paramilitary groups, they train, they are financially supported, technically supported. They have full support from the special services.”
He suffered severe bruising, a concussion, and received stitches to his head. On Monday, Japiridze said his recovery was going well.
“We continue our fight,” he said. “We are now under terrorists. I was born in the Soviet Union and I don’t remember the feeling that I have now. This is a terrorist state.”
Hundreds of protesters have been arrested as well, and could face years in prison on criminal charges, according to RFERL.
A Dark Road
A Georgian Dream lawmaker, Dito Samkharadze, appears to have claimed responsibility for some attacks in recent days. He posted a list of press, political, and civil society organizations on Facebook, with the added note: “We will not forgive you even a little bit…Whatever you plan against us, we will return to you thousand times worse.” Alongside his post, he shared a video depicting nearly 10 minutes of the vandalism.
This relentless harassment campaign could spiral into an even larger crisis, warned Tsutskiridze.
“When this brutality occurs, and when we are starting to see this mob out in the streets, and going after civil society, leaders going after opposition leaders, to me that's an indication that all other means are exhausted. And to me that's an indication that the end is near—the political end of that government is near,” Tsutskiridze told The Daily Beast.
With elections quickly approaching in the fall, some have voiced concern that the Georgian Dream party could go so far as to sabotage the election results and rig them in their favor.
“I am… hopeful and optimistic that the Georgian Dream is poised to lose its elections. This means, however, that they will intensify the level of repression,” Tsutskiridze told The Daily Beast, adding that it is possible they will work at “suppressing voters” or “escalating” pressure on critics.
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Making matters worse, it’s likely that Georgia will crack down on election observation organizations that don’t comply with the new law, Thornton warned.
“NGOs are not going to comply, at least a lot of the major ones. These include election observation organizations. If they’re not compliant, they are not going to be allowed to accredited by the Central Election Commission, which means there will be no observation of the elections, which means the elections are going to take place in darkness,” Thornton added.
“It’s going to be an environment that really would be very difficult to perceive as credible,” Thornton said.
In an attempt to push Georgia on a different path, Secretary of State Tony Blinken has been vocal in his criticism of the law. He suggested last month that the United States would impose travel sanctions on officials “who are responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia.”
Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced a proposal that would set in motion travel restrictions to hold Georgian government officials accountable, in addition to donating $50 million in support of democracy projects in Georgia.
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