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STORY: “Activists around me have been attacked physically.”This is Tamar Jakeli, the director of Tbilisi Pride in Georgia, where the country’s parliament gave its initial approval on Thursday to a set of bills that amounts to a sweeping suppression of rights for LGBTQ+ people.“Unfortunately, it's been almost every day that someone got physically beaten." "Yeah, it feels quite scary.”The bills could outlaw Pride events and public displays of Pride flags and includes bans on the, quote, “propaganda” of same-sex relationships and gender-affirming surgeries.The package was proposed by the ruling Georgian Dream party and approved by a majority of deputies.It must pass two more readings before becoming law.Parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili has said the bills are necessary to control “LGBT propaganda” which he said was, quote, “altering traditional relations.”The legislation would also ban non-heterosexual people from adopting children.The constitution in deeply religious Georgia, where the country's Orthodox Church enjoys wide public respect, already bans same-sex marriage.But despite a decade of social gains made by LGBTQ+ activists, Jakeli says the government’s regressive turn is having a chilling effect."So, for example, over the last couple of years, we were removed completely from the national human rights strategy and action plan." "So far, I have been physically safe, but my Mom has been getting calls in the middle of the night, she's been getting calls and sometimes she's afraid for my life, my security.”Earlier this month, the Parliamentary speaker said that lawmakers would only vote on the bills’ second and third readings during the autumn session.The proposed measures are likely to fuel EU and U.S. concerns about Georgia’s political direction.Following their criticism of a law on “foreign agents” that critics see as Russian-inspired and which sparked a series of huge protests.Opposition parties, most of which have been boycotting parliament, have described the latest bills as an attempt by Georgian Dream to appeal to conservative-minded voters ahead of the autumn vote.
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