U.S. Supports Peaceful Protests In Georgia, Urges Against Violence

The United States on Tuesday expressed support for the ongoing peaceful protests in Georgia against a Kremlin-inspired law that could be used to label political opponents as “foreign agents”, and urged against any steps that would turn the protests violent, TURAN’s Washington correspondent reports.

“… We certainly support what in the United States would be an expression of the people’s rights under the First Amendment to peacefully protest and demonstrate.  Our call and our push, of course, continues to be that they be peaceful and certainly would condemn any steps that are taken for these kinds of protests to become violent,” State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told TURAN correspondent during daily briefing.

Patel went on to reiterate Washington’s assessment of the reintroduced Foreign Agents Bill as “deeply problematic and inconsistent with what one would think [are Georgia’s] EU aspirations.”

“You have to remember we’re talking about something that cracks down on media organizations, civil society organizations, and other things,” he explained.