Georgia Targets LGBT Rights in New Crackdown After ‘Russian’ Law

(Bloomberg) -- Georgia’s ruling party put forward draft legislation targeting LGBT rights, adding to a crackdown on civil society that has drawn strong condemnation from the US and the European Union.

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The measures against “LGBT propaganda” would ban portrayals of same-sex relationships in films, television and advertising, outlaw the registration of same-sex marriages and make it illegal for non-heterosexual couples to adopt children, Shalva Papuashvili, the speaker of the Georgian parliament, told reporters Tuesday in the capital Tbilisi.

Schools and universities would be banned from teaching about same-sex relations, while public demonstrations and meetings on LGBT rights would also be made illegal under the legislation.

The Georgian Dream party announced the so-called Protection of Family Values and Minors package one day after Papuashvili signed a controversial “foreign agent” law that the US and the EU had criticized as similar to one President Vladimir Putin introduced to crush pro-democracy groups in Russia.

Parliament last week overrode Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili’s veto and ignored blunt warnings from Washington and Brussels that the law threatens Georgia’s ambitions of joining the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Zourabichvili has urged opposition parties to sign her “Georgian Charter,” pledging to scrap the law at October parliamentary elections.

Georgian Dream’s proposals are “one more step to an authoritarian regime,” said Khatia Dekanoidze, an opposition lawmaker from the Euro-Optimists grouping. “I’m sure by introducing this they want to appeal to their voters ahead of the elections and once again stick the LGBT propaganda label to the West.”

The Caucasus republic’s two biggest banks have tumbled in London trading amid the confrontation over the “foreign agent” law. Bank of Georgia Group PLC has dropped 31% from a record high on May 1, and TBC Bank Group Plc has lost 27%.

Protesters gathered in huge numbers for weeks in Tbilisi to oppose the law that targets non-governmental organizations and independent media. It threatens fines and imprisonment for as long as five years for organizations or individuals that receive at least 20% of their income from abroad and fail to register with the government as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”

Russia has also passed legislation outlawing “gay propaganda.” In November, the country’s top court declared the “international LGBT public movement” to be an extremist organization, paving the way for a new wave of repression even as no such group exists in Russia.

“A Russian-style crackdown on LGBTI is another red flag for Georgia‘s EU ambitions,” Michael Roth, chairman of the foreign relations committee of the German Parliament, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Georgian Dream “must stop initiatives to destroy Georgia’s future.”

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