Special units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia completely left the territory next to the parliament building, where a rally was held against the law on foreign agents, TASS reported.
The last special forces remained on Chichinadze street, leading to the official entrance of the parliament. The situation there was the most tense during the demonstration, but after the protesters started to leave the street, the department's leadership decided to lift the cordon. Now only police teams are on duty near the parliament.
Representatives of non-governmental organizations and political parties on Sunday in Tbilisi organized a protest against the law on foreign agents. Several thousand demonstrators gathered in the Square of the First Republic and organized a march to the parliament. Later, clashes broke out with police outside the parliament building as protesters demanded to be allowed to the stage set up for supporters of the ruling party “Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia“, which are to meet on Monday. Police had to use pepper spray several times. At the moment, the situation near the parliament building is calm, most of the protesters have dispersed.
On April 17, the Parliament of Georgia at the first reading of a plenary session approved the bill "On the transparency of foreign influence", which was opposed by the country's president Salome Zurabishvili, the opposition and Western diplomats, who saw it as an obstacle to the integration of the republic into the European Union. Since April 15, the opposition and civil activists have been holding rallies against the bill in Tbilisi.
The ruling party "Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia" at the beginning of April, he announced the decision to re-submit the bill "On the transparency of foreign influence" to the parliament. This comes a year after a similar initiative led to mass protests, forcing the authorities to abandon the bill. Its text remained the same as last year, except for the term “agent of foreign influence”. Instead, the term “organization that protects the interests of a foreign power“ is used.