In Georgia’s charming capital, Tbilisi, signs and graffiti can still be seen declaring that the “Russian law” must be stopped. The term refers to the Transparency of Foreign Influence Law, passed by Parliament in May 2024 despite a presidential veto. Then-President Salome Zourabichvili stated that the law “represented an attempt to return the country to the past”; however, the parliamentary majority overrode the veto.
The proposed legislation was labelled a “Russian law” because of its resemblance to Russia’s “foreign influence law”, which requires individuals and organizations receiving foreign funding, or engaging in vaguely defined “political activity”, to register as foreign agents.
As in Russia, Georgian “foreign agents” are required to submit detailed financial declarations and other documents to the authorities, and to label public statements as originating from a “foreign agent”. In 2023, massive protests prevented the government from proceeding with the law. Unfortunately, the second attempt was successful. Protests erupted again, but this time they were suppressed by police, often violently.
According to Tamaz Kirtava of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), one of Georgia’s best-known watchdog organizations, courts imposed administrative sanctions on protesters during the November–December 2024 demonstrations while ignoring visible signs of torture.
“Torture” sounds harsh — and harsh it has been. The ruling party, Georgian Dream, is backed by a strong and well-funded security apparatus in which the police wield significant power.
The Transparency of Foreign Influence Law was only one in a series of repressive measures.
Many experts now ask: how did this happen in Georgia?
Opinions differ when the country took the wrong turn. It is fair to say, however, that warning signs had been visible for years. One interviewed expert, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that indications of Russian influence were already evident during President Zourabichvili’s 2018 election campaign. According to the expert, this was the period when people who had left the country long ago, mostly for Russia re-entered Georgian politics. It was also a time of increasingly intense criticism of the West.
“The conspiracies and stories about the Deep State and the Global War Party started at that time. The narrative was clearly preparing society for something, and in 2022 it became official,” the interviewee says.
The “Global War Party” is a conspiracy theory referring to an alleged network of individuals or organizations supposedly driving current conflicts and seeking to involve Georgia in them. The theory has been promoted by senior politicians representing the ruling Georgian Dream party.
No authoritarian system can emerge without attempts to control the media. Georgia’s political U-turn was indeed preceded by massive propaganda campaigns.
“The first thing they [Georgian Dream] did was attack the media,” says Nino Bakradze, founder and editor-in-chief of the investigative journalism team iFact.
“They did this deliberately, telling people that independent media outlets are fake and that they lie to society. And it has worked as people are losing trust. We now spend enormous amounts of resources trying to prove that what we publish is true. But it is still very difficult to convince people that we are telling the truth. Georgian Dream calls us agents, spies and so on.”
Professor Mariam Gersamia, an expert in media psychology, has witnessed firsthand how propaganda exploits societal vulnerabilities.
“We have propaganda channels broadcasting in Georgian with substantial funding. Imedi TV [currently under sanctions in the UK] is the most watched and trusted TV channel.”
According to Gersamia, the strategy is to attract audiences through entertainment and game shows. Once viewers are engaged with enjoyable content, propaganda narratives are easily introduced.
Gersamia compares the hybrid methods employed by the ruling Georgian Dream party to “anaesthesia” administered to the population since the party came to power in 2012.
“It happened step by step, very slowly.”
Indeed, it was not only foreign observers who struggled to believe what was happening in Georgia. Gersamia conducts regular focus groups among journalists, and even they found it difficult to imagine Georgia turning into another Belarus. According to Gersamia, this disbelief both within Georgia and abroad contributed to the slow international response.
The Georgian Constitution contains an article obliging the government, parliament and president to pursue policies aimed at EU accession. This is also the aspiration of most citizens. Georgian Dream, however, governs in ways that sharply contradict European values. How can this paradox be explained?
“Authoritarian regimes cannot be changed through elections. When institutions are captured by the ruling party, independent media lacks funding, and the opposition is imprisoned, the situation becomes extremely difficult,” Gersamia says.
And the propaganda is effective.
“Ivanishvili has packaged the message in a certain way: of course we are moving toward the EU, but we do not want to provoke Russia,” says Gersamia.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made Georgia’s position increasingly clear. Today, propaganda portrays Georgian Dream as the guarantor of peace. According to Gersamia, this messaging tells people that the alternative to Georgian Dream is the fate seen in Ukraine — and previously experienced by Georgia itself during the 2008 war with Russia in and around the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Katie Tutberidze, a journalist working for the opposition-minded Formula TV, admits that when democracy itself is at stake, journalists inevitably become activists.
“We are fighting against draconian laws. During the last two years, the Georgian government has adopted 30 draconian laws linked to education, LGBT rights, human rights, women’s rights and media freedom. They are trying to turn Georgia into a police state.”
Tutberidze herself has faced the same reality as many journalists in Georgia: intimidation, harassment and physical attacks. Although she could easily leave the country and seek political asylum abroad, like many liberal-minded Georgians she refuses to leave.
Protesting has also become effectively criminalized. People face heavy fines for participating in demonstrations, and even crowdfunding to cover those fines has been restricted.
The international community has appeared surprisingly powerless in responding to developments in Georgia. Attention has shifted to other global crises, pushing Georgia off the international agenda.
In the spring of 2026, however, at least two significant developments took place.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) invoked its Moscow Mechanism, which allows participating states to launch an expert inquiry when serious human rights violations are suspected in a member state. The resulting report expressed serious concerns regarding the rule of law in Georgia, including the disproportionate use of force against journalists and demonstrators, problems with elections, repressive legislation and the independence of the judiciary.
In early April, the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on local democracy expressing that it was “seriously concerned” about the state of local democracy in Georgia, a country long regarded as an important member of the organization. The Council of Europe has also raised concerns regarding the country’s repressive legislation.
Both reports were welcomed by civil society organizations and independent experts, but they have had little impact on the actions of the ruling party. For many Georgians, these responses are seen as too little, too late. The victory of democratic forces in Hungary’s elections has offered some hope but increased international attention and concrete support for independent journalism, academia and civil society in Georgia remain urgently needed.