A Salve for a Wounded Civil Society? Addressing Repression in the Republic of Georgia. By Kathryn Butterworth, PhD
A Salve for a Wounded Civil Society? Addressing Repression in the Republic of Georgia
It was Mikheil Saakashvili’s government that so strongly initiated the EU flag into Georgian political and public discourse, first as a symbolic rejection of Russian dominance and later as a symbol asserting common European heritage. In the years after, EU flags seemed ubiquitous, in no small part thanks to the Saakashvili government’s mandate that EU flags would be placed outside government buildings to accompany the Georgian flag. Indeed, twenty years later in 2024, high-level European officials remarked that the ubiquity of EU flags in Tbilisi connoted a high degree of public commitment to European Union accession, a step that requires a certain standard of civil liberties and human rights.
The 2010s brought a period of westward looking government policies to the foreground of Georgian politics, meaning that Georgia was focused on accession to organizations such as the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, having been a member of the Council of Europe since 1999. In 2012, the Georgian Dream party came to power in an election deemed free and fair, riding a wave of pro-European sentiment. European Union flags were prevalent throughout the capital of Tbilisi, an illustrative symbol of the liberal changes occurring at the level of government and civil society. For example, in 2014 the Georgian Dream government enacted civil liberty protections to include gender and sexual minority rights; within ten years these rights would be repealed and the civil society organizations to support them, widely suppressed. Until the early 2020s, the EU flag could be interpreted as a symbol of aspiration but, in addition, it has since become one of resistance to the Georgian Dream government and its repressive, increasingly authoritarian policies. However, this piece argues that attacks on civil society are not only government-led but are also the result of a nativist thread of nationalism in Georgian society, embodied by such organizations as Alt-Info, Kartuli Marshi (Georgian March), and Kartuli Dzala (Georgian Power), to name a few. Such organizations support government-level attacks on civil society organizations, particularly those deemed to be against Georgian traditional values, including Sapari, Transparency International Georgia, and a range of independent media outlets. As such, this nativist thread needs to be addressed alongside illiberal government policies in order to help rebuild Georgian civil society.
In October 2024, just twelve years after Georgian Dream’s buoyant rise to power on a pro-EU platform, it was accused of fraudulent elections by European leadership and individual countries, such as France, Germany, and Poland, as well as at the European Union level. Notably, in the latter case, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Paweł Herczyński, Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Georgia, denounced the brutal suppression of protesters by police belonging to the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Further, the European Parliament in addition to a Joint Statement by the ministers of the EU condemned the elections as neither free nor fair.
Prior to the 2024 contested election, the Georgian Dream government began to turn away from its European path; a path to EU membership that at one time was so important to the party that it was enshrined in an amendment to Georgia’s constitution in 2018. In what was understood as a rejection of so-called European norms and values, Georgian Dream rammed through legislation ranging from attacks on LGBTQ+ rights and visibility (On Family Values and Protection of Minors) to an attack on broad swaths of Georgian civil society (Foreign Agents Registration Act). This legislation represents government-level repression, particularly when combined with attacks by Internal Affairs police on peaceful protesters fighting for the remnants of Georgian democracy. However, representing attacks on Georgian civil society as solely a government problem is incomplete. As in many countries around the globe, including the United States, a nativist thread of nationalism has gripped certain segments of society. In turn, nativist groups, such as Alt-Info, Kartuli Marshi, and Kartuli Dzala, have commonality in rejecting “western” attitudes and instead are against LGBTQ+ rights, embracing pro-Russian rhetoric, and a commitment to a conservative Georgian Christian orthodoxy. Such groups have been present to counter protest those organizations supporting sexual and gender minority rights, such as Tbilisi Pride, and that have been publicly pro-EU and NATO. Notably, the presence of such groups is not new, but it has been growing and gaining momentum in Georgian society.
Thus, any discussion about how to address repression of civil society must include a discussion of such nativist groups and why these have collectively become less peripheral in Georgian society. Instead, acknowledging that nativist, xenophobic, and homophobic narratives are powerful and have been gaining popularity with increasingly larger segments of Georgian society will be instrumental in dismantling these harmful narratives, narratives that Georgian Dream has little incentive to apprehend. Such attacks on civil society and human rights are not limited to the Georgian Dream government and its official policies. Far-right, nativist groups must be addressed through dialogue to help civil society organizations, especially those focusing on human rights (including sexual and gender minority rights) in addition to pro-democracy and pro-European groups.
Kathryn Butterworth, PhD is a post-Doctoral fellow at the University of Idaho as well as a non-resident fellow at the Center for Eastern and Central European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at Troy University.
