The students of Tbilisi State Medical University have been participating as a faculty in the protests against the "Foreign Agents Law" since May 4, 2024. They are striking at their university and demanding that the professors publicly take their side. During the demonstrations, they work in groups of around 15 people as volunteer first responders.
Since the beginning of the year, various civil society groups have been demonstrating against a law that is based on a similar law in Russia, with which the Kremlin is increasingly eliminating the opposition and civil society. Many Georgians fear that their foreign agent law will be applied in the same way as in their northern neighbor: to suppress dissent and free speech by cracking down on non-governmental organizations that have financial ties abroad.
This law would have the same devastating effects on non-profit organizations and human rights groups as in Russia. Some foreign NGOs have already announced that they will stop working in Georgia because they do not want to register as foreign agents. The ruling Georgian Dream party and its allies, however, claimed that the legislation would promote transparency and national sovereignty and rejected Western criticism of the bill, which was adopted in third reading on May 14, 2024.
