After the rejection of the draft law on "Transparency of Foreign Influence" in the second reading today, Georgian Dream Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze again made a propaganda statement in line with the spirit of the draft law.

Today's statement by Irakli Kobakhidze proves that Georgian Dream intends to make labeling the civil society as an enemy a permanent part of his political activities. By doing so, the ruling party demonstratively refuses to fulfill the 10^th recommendation of the European Commission, which obliges the Government to involve the civil society in the decision-making process at all levels.

Irakli Kobakhidze's statement also shows that Georgian Dream will conduct its pre-election campaign for the 2024 elections at the expense of inciting religious and nationalist sentiments and homophobic rhetoric. The task of the Georgian Dream Chairman is to offer a new “image of political enemy" to his voters, this time in the form of civil society organizations, which, according to him, are working to return the National Movement to power.

We would like to remind the chairman of the ruling party that a large part of the civil society, unlike the absolute majority of the Georgian Dream leaders, both by providing legal aid to the victims and by documenting human rights violations, had been confronting the violations of rights during the rule of the National Movement.

We hoped that the mass protests held in recent days would have made Georgian Dream realize that discrediting the civil society and accusing them of political affiliation with the National Movement could not bring them the desired results. However, Georgian Dream still stubbornly continues the policy that had been protested by tens of thousands of citizens gathered in front of the Parliament of Georgia for several days.

We call on the Government of Georgia to refuse the damaging campaign of labeling the civil society as a political enemy and opponent. Instead, taking into account the 10^th recommendation of the European Commission, they should work to accelerate the European integration of the country and thus defuse the current civil protest.