On the day of the last Pride, almost exactly one year ago, the rainbow flags went up in flames. In that July 2023, on the streets of Tblisi, far-right, Orthodox and pro-Russianinvaded the spaces intended for the parade organized by the community LGBTQI+. An attack, yet another, to which the police did not resist. In this June 2024 the majority party Georgian Dreamafter managing to pass the amendment on “foreign agents” despite massive street protests, it paves the way for the promulgation of another “Russian law”: the one against so-called “LGBTQ+ propaganda”. And in reality the law is not even just one: another 18 changes will be added to articles of the civil, labor and education codes.
If the new one comes into force “Russian law”the second, surgical interventions will be prohibited for change sex (or rather, any “medical manipulation with the aim of changing gender” will be prohibited). The organization of public LGBTQI+ events such as the adoption of children and minors by gay couples; it will no longer be possible to indicate a gender other than that of the birth sex on the documents. It is forbidden to make public information that “promotes homosexual relations or incest”. No more kisses and gay relationships on TV, in films and advertisements. This law, like the other, is almost a copy and paste of the amendment adopted more than ten years ago Flywhere the “international LGBT movement”, by decision of the Russian Supreme Court, has now ended up on the list of extremist organizations.
Shalva Papuashvilipresident of the Georgian Parliament since 2021, the day after signing the controversial law against “foreign agents” (which makes NGOs that receive 20% of funding from abroad end up on a list of “agents pursuing interests of a power foreign”), declared that the process of approving this new one is starting bill which protects “family values and the protection of minors”. The first reading will take place in the current parliamentary session which will end in July, the second and third next autumn: “so whoever wants can prepare” commented Papuashvili.
In Georgia at least 17 locations of various ong were vandalized, the RFE media calculated, as were those of the parties opposition. Hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets for months waving the blue flag of Brussels, in the name of freedom of the press and expression. They surround the Tblisi Parliament, which seems to want to increasingly resemble the Moscow Duma, where members of the Georgian Dream party sit, who remain deaf to the calls of the European Union (to which they nevertheless declare they want to belong) and the USA. They are not only laws, but also bridges burned towards the European path of the former Soviet state of the South Caucasus. But the laws in Georgia are made by the palace, despite the square outside.
