Tuesday, June 9, 2026

NGOs

Georgia charges two with spying

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TBILISI, June 1 – Georgian authorities have charged two citizens with spying for foreign intelligence services in separate cases that the defendants’ lawyers say are baseless. Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG) announced the arrests on Saturday, while the Prosecutor’s Office charged the two the following day with espionage, under a clause of the criminal code … Read more

8 ways to spot Georgia’s influence media

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Here are 8 tell-tale signs that the Georgia “news” site you are reading is not independent. Georgia has many outlets that describe themselves as independent media. Some do real reporting. Others function more like influence platforms: selecting facts, amplifying friendly NGOs, laundering embassy positions, and presenting political narratives as neutral truth. Walter Lippmann warned that … Read more

Tbilisi’s truth machine

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Georgia’s government is currently shunned by much of Europe. An impression has taken hold that the country has slipped into authoritarian rule. Part of this image rests on the claim that the 2024 parliamentary election was stolen. The strongest false narratives are often assembled from pieces of correct facts. That is what happened here. Let … Read more

Europe rights commissioner meets Tbilisi NGOs

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TBILISI, April 14 – The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, met non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Tbilisi on Tuesday, discussing protests, detainees and recent legal changes. Interpressnews reported that the commissioner met representatives of civic society, including Transparency International Georgia, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. … Read more

Tbilisi NGOs to march for unity

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TBILISI, March 5 – A collection of Georgian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) plan a protest march in Tbilisi on March 7, under the slogan “Strength in Unity”. The march will start at 7:00 PM from the Philharmonic Hall and end up outside the parliament building. Announcing the march, organizers emphasized the ongoing civil resistance against anti-Western … Read more

‘NGOs undermine democracy in Eastern Europe’

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TBILISI, December 12 – Georgia’s parliament speaker blasted non-governmental organizations on Friday, describing the NGO system as a harmful export from the West to Eastern Europe’s fledgling democracies. Speaking on Friday, Shalva Papuashvili said the NGO model imposed on developing countries represents what he called “the greatest evil” created by the West in post-Soviet democracies. … Read more

NGOs say ruling party launches new crackdown under ‘foreign grants’ law

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TBILISI, September 22 – Dozens of Georgian civil society groups say the government has begun a new wave of repression, using a controversial law on foreign funding to target their work. In a joint statement released by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), twenty non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accused the ruling Georgian Dream party of weaponizing … Read more

Pepper spray and protest gear at heart of Georgia’s ‘sabotage’ case

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TBILISI, September 8 – Georgia’s controversial ‘sabotage’ case has widened, with prosecutors freezing the bank accounts of 12 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), up from seven when the probe first began. The groups are accused of aiding last year’s post-election protests, which spiraled into street clashes in Tbilisi. Officials now say evidence shows that some NGOs purchased … Read more

Five tricks Tbilisi NGOs got away with – but not anymore

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News platforms by donor-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been among the most influential sources for shaping how Georgia’s politics are understood abroad. Here are their five biggest tricks that wouldn’t be possible today. Their stories travel far and get picked up by international outlets and policymakers. But some of those stories haven’t always stood up … Read more