(21 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tbilisi – 19 May 2024
1. Various of students waving European flag over the bridge of peace, and gathering in Europe Square
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Liza Kvatchadze, student protester: ++PARTLY COVERED++
“We keep fighting against Russian law, because our government doesn’t listen to us, so we have to, we have to fight. We have to be there. We have to organize any protests, because our country and our future is European, so we don’t want anything Russian in Georgia.”
3. Protesters gathered listening to national anthem
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Natali Japaridze, student protester: ++PARTLY COVERED++
“We’re students, we are not born in slavery, and we were born in a free country. And our children are going to say that as well. That’s why we’re fighting today, and that’s what we are fighting for.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tbilisi – 20 May 2024
5. Students gathering near Tbilisi State University
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Aleksandre Suladze, student protester: ++PARTLY COVERED++
“I think it’s important to let the country, the citizens know where students stand, and let other students know that we are many and we are together, and that this is not a normal situation in the country. This is not how things should be done."
7. Various of protest march
STORYLINE:
Students have been protesting in the Georgian capital Tbilisi over the country’s divisive foreign influence bill.
The law, passed by parliament earlier in the month, requires media and nongovernmental organizations and other nonprofits to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad.
President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with the governing party, Georgian Dream, had vetoed the legislation on Saturday, but the ruling party has a majority sufficient to override a presidential veto.
Natsvlishvili and many of her peers believe the bill which is similar to legislation the Kremlin used to crack down on independent news media, nonprofits, and activists, will turn the country towards Russia instead of the European Union.
Most of the young student protesters were born in independent Georgia which had strained and turbulent relations with Russia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and Georgia’s departure from its role as a Soviet republic.
AP Video shot by Kostya Manenkov
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