though the horse has bolted, of sorts, here my analysis of "the law". It is squarely bad faith.
You can sensibly call it the "we can repress anyone we like" law.
I can compare it with an analysis I did of such transparency laws in 2017 more globally, for @TAInitiative 1/
as I argued back then & citing @SaskiaBrech, not yet related to Georgia, there are clear tell-tale signs when a law has bad faith.
This law here has all of them. 2/
1/ excessive range.
This law will apply to ALL non-profit entities, save a handful of National (!) Sports Federations or blood donation societies.
The charity helping those with disabilities with non-Georgian donors? Likely a Foreign Agent.
anyone with a website with wide reach (a start-up?) -- could be a potential foreign agent.
Here are the bad-faith examples of such sweeping range from around the world, from my 2017 report.
2/ sweeping definitions on "foreign power":
you get your money from non-Georgian citizens, for example in fundraisers by a charity? You are a foreign agent.
as a non-profit, you get sponsorship by an entity that is registered abroad, or an international organization?
in fact, if you do not know the source of a chunk of your funding exactly, for example from a tombola or other collection? You could be a foreign agent.
3/ lots of opportunity for arbitrariness.
There are multiple "defects" that can be found. Who decides when an application is "complete and correct"?
You can't name the people that bought 600 GEL of your knitted socks? There you go, you did not comply.
Who sets the implementation rules? The Ministry of Justice, so you can clamp things down further. And yes, this arbitrariness happens right now in many domains.
Below how that looked in my 2017 report.
4/ Wide-ranging powers of inspection
Monitors can check on a very wide range of your work, including personal information inside the organization -- and can do this on *any* organization they wish to target, every six months. 9/
5/ punitive fines:
Make a mistake & fines are in range where they will harm or destroy most Georgian NGOs. 25.000 GEL if you "evade" registration, 10.000 if you make/continue a "shortcoming" in your filings.
It's not "up to 10k GEL", but it's the *first* fine they will slap on you. This is a straight out demonstration of vicious intent.
I half-imagine that the lawyers who had to cook this up on instruction put this in to send a message of how nuts this is.
(2017 below.)
this is for nerds & I could go on, but tells you five main things seriously wrong with bill passing first reading @Geoparliament today.
As saying goes, you can only have two out of the three:
- competent judgement;
- good faith;
- be in favour of this insane law. END
today, EthnoFest in #Tbilisi (alas only realized it happening late afternoon), with plenty of great things you can get if you
-- enjoy #crafts
-- want to support local business, or
-- are thinking abt gifts already
Below some of my favourites. 1/n
This won the overall prize (congrats!!!) & was my favourite: fairly simple, evocative of #Tbilisi & #Batumi#architecture, nice #lighting addition somewhere in a flat, neat product. 2/n
final town-hall session still many in audience after very full @TbilisiZeg day.
Ukraine, the broader context, notes on caution & context & reflections.
"are we here today because there wasn't a Nuremburg trial for the Soviets?", asks @antelava w reference to comment by Giga Bokeria that there hasn't been enough of a reckoning with the crimes of communism. @TbilisiZeg
maybe not so much Nuremburg, but "West" could & should have paid much more attention to what happened earlier in Chechnya, etc., so some hope that this focuses minds on such crimes in the future, says @AnnaNeistat
"how do you approach your work of holding people accountable? Do you look for patterns?" @avalaina & @AnnaNeistat describe how they assemble evidence, but the question: for who? So many cases, worry that only a few will/can be prosecuted. #WarCrimes
"some of the work is v frustrating, I interviewed hundreds of people, who were tortured, raped, nails pulled, and you *know* at same time many others are suffering, so question is how to stop perpetrators now" #Ukraine@avalaina
keeping attention has an impact -- opinion polls show the public support in West is there, often ahead of governments, and this matters on the ground. In some cases, supporting even increasing, says @yarotrof at @TbilisiZeg
we were preparing for UKR conflict from "this time last year", when invasion started, we were there, several teams, says @RachelCorpTweet, the scale & size, also of refugees, still took everyone by surprise & sending in teams safely a challenge.
Forgotten Wars, Open Wounds -- @NorthAndrew and @saadmohseni abt the conflicts that we do not pay attention to. #Georgia slipping from minds; Iraq protests in 2019; Afghanistan now.
Third session in @TbilisiZeg in #Tbilisi.
.@saadmohseni In Afghanistan, "we paid a very heavy price for the victory over Soviets", the question I ask about #Ukraine -- how will this end? "The American have been very fickle."
"It's easy to cheer from the sidelines, but people get killed. We have been seeing that play out in our own lives in 44 years of war."
(In my view: fair point, but UKR is & wants to be in Europe, and that does matter.) #zeg22
"Rethinking Colonialism" in context of #Ukraine, w @yermolenko_v, John Lee Anderson @peterpomeranzev moderated by Nino Japiashvili, parallel session, crowded room.
.@yermolenko_v Western colonialism was overseas, emphasized difference, RU colonialism was on land, and the domination was based on claim of sameness, "you are unable to be different", therefore focus on #memory, we are only in the beginning of analyzing this. #Ukraine
"dragging people down into the a state of sameness" also as theme for @peterpomeranzev , as illustrated by the cellars as a theme of war in Ukraine: in which people hide, survive; get tortured & killed; Russia has not been able to be deal with its own traumas & ends up repeating.