(Tbilisi) The Georgian parliament on Tuesday adopted a law on “family values” and against “propaganda of homosexual relations”, denounced by the European Union, the United States and human rights organizations as restricting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
The legislation, similar to that in Russia, was approved by lawmakers from the ruling Georgian Dream party in a vote boycotted by the opposition amid the government’s conservative and anti-Western shift.
The adoption of the text could fuel tensions in this Caucasian country ahead of crucial legislative elections scheduled for October 26.
In total, 84 MPs voted for and 0 against, according to an official count.
The bill was voted on at the end of June in first reading and was therefore definitively validated on Tuesday.
It must now be signed by the pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili, who has broken with the government, or, if she refuses, by the Speaker of Parliament.
The text prohibits “propaganda of homosexual relations and incest” in educational institutions and television broadcasts, and also restricts “gatherings and demonstrations.”
Rights groups have criticized the wording as equating incest with homosexuality.
The European Union had estimated at the beginning of September that it “violates the fundamental rights of Georgians and risks reinforcing the stigmatization and discrimination of a part of the population.”
Parliament Speaker Chalva Papuashvili, who supported the bill, said the text aimed to “strengthen the mechanisms for protecting minors and family values based on the union of a woman and a man.”
“Human rights violations”
In Russia, similar legislation cracking down on “LGBT propaganda” was passed about a decade ago and has since been significantly expanded, with Moscow even adding the “international LGBT movement” to its list of entities declared “terrorist and extremist,” even though no organization in the country bears that name.
The Georgian Dream party has already been accused by its critics of increasingly turning towards Moscow, despite Russia’s war in the country in 2008, and of drawing inspiration from repressive Russian legislation.
Georgia has been shaken in recent months by massive demonstrations against a law on “foreign influence”, which has been sharply criticised in the West and is again similar to Russia’s legislation on “foreign agents”, which has contributed to the repression of all opposition in that country.
Opponents accuse the Georgian Dream party of jeopardizing their country’s hoped-for membership in the European Union.
But while in Tbilisi the pro-European protests were a great success, the founder of the Georgian Dream, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who exerts great influence on Georgian politics behind the scenes, is revered in some regions.
The predominantly Christian Orthodox country was granted EU candidate status in December 2023, but accession negotiations have not yet begun. The country also aspires to join NATO.
However, EU leaders had decided before the summer on a “de facto” “halt” of the accession process pending a change of policy in Tbilisi.
The Georgian Dream party, for its part, accuses the West of undermining “traditional values”, a phrase also regularly used by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, the United States announced that it was “taking additional steps to impose visa restrictions on more than 60 Georgians and their family members who are responsible for or complicit in the undermining of democracy in Georgia.”
“We remain concerned about human rights abuses and anti-democratic actions in Georgia,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.