Click Today, 00:00"Foreign agents" the law undermined civil society in Russia. Georgia is fighting back

After several days of widespread protests, the “foreign agents” bill was withdrawn in the Georgian parliament. A similar law in Russia stifled independent media and non-governmental organizations, until the laws passed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine put an end to their activities. The example of Russia vividly shows how the curbing of these two sectors makes different information and opportunities for self-organization disappear from the public space from government narratives.

The “Foreign Agents” law is one of the tools used to persecute non-governmental organizations and independent media in Russia for years. The last point to the activity of independent media in Russia was the amendments to the criminal law that entered into force on March 4, 2022, which, among other things, imposed an obligation to call what was happening a “special military operation” (not a war) and forbade “discrediting” the Russian armed forces, introducing complete censorship in the public sphere on the subject of war.

The result of such legislative manipulations – only one opinion is allowed to exist in the public space. You have to look for different information in “Telegram” groups and other social network platforms, where it is also diluted with a good dose of propaganda, or use a VPN (virtual private network) to access websites blocked by “Roskomnadzor” after the start of the war – among them only the remaining Russian independent media, but also foreign portals, including “RUS TVNET”.