Scuffles broke out in Parliament and dozens of protesters were arrested on Wednesday as Georgian lawmakers voted to advance a controversial bill that would require organisations receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili tells FRANCE 24 that the law is an attempt to "suppress critical voices" before the October elections. Known as the “Russian law” because the Kremlin uses similar legislation to target journalists and NGOs, critics fear it will similarly be used to crack down on dissent and civic freedoms in Georgia. Zourabichvili says the law is nearly a “duplicate” of the legislation Russian President Vladimir Putin uses to intimidate his critics.
