Renew Europe Now leaders reiterate the support and closeness to Georgian people in their fight against the ‘foreign agent law’, and condemn the police violence and arrests against the demonstrators.
The bill, expected to be adopted today, Tuesday 14 May, is undoubtedly reprehensible. It isolates Georgian NGOs from the possibility of working with Western NGOs and heralds a further crackdown on freedom of speech and the press, as has already happened in Hungary.
We urge the Georgian government to immediately reverse the course it has taken by swiftly implementing the measures it has committed to as a candidate country. For us, the rule of law and individual freedoms are inalienable values written into the European DNA and will remain so, without exception.
The Georgian people have taken to the streets in recent weeks waving Georgian and European flags, saying 'no' to the law and 'yes' to their country's accession to the EU, after being granted the candidate status by the European Council in December.
They know their future is European, and we stand with them.