Transparency is, will be “most important tool” for protection of democratic society - Parliament official
Botchorishvili denounced the disinformation campaigns “to deceive and blackmail” the Georgian public, and noted it was a “shame” that some organisations were “spending money, [which they] supposedly received to protect freedom of speech in Georgia, to suppress the truth”. Photo via Parliament of Georgia
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Transparency is and will be “the most important tool” for the protection of the democratic society, Maka Botchorishvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament's European Union Integration Committee, said on Sunday.
In her social media post, Botchorishvili commented on the “disinformation campaign” around the resubmission of the bill on the transparency of foreign influence, which calls for the registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they derive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad.
In light of such anti-transparency campaigns, the need for the law becomes even more evident [...] Presenting transparency as if it can be used as a tool against democracy is an insult to the democratic world”, she emphasised.
Botchorishvili denounced the disinformation campaigns “to deceive and blackmail” the Georgian public, and noted it was a “shame” that some organisations were “spending money, [which they] supposedly received to protect freedom of speech in Georgia, to suppress the truth”.
No matter how you scare the public with absurdity - taking away the [European Union] candidate’s status [obtained last year] or stopping visa-free travel [with the EU], you will never be able to make transparency a Russian phenomenon”, the Committee Chair stressed.
The ruling party retracted a similar draft law last year following public protests. The reintroduction of the bill has been criticised by officials from the European Commission, NATO, Council of Europe and US Department of State.