Failure to comply with FARA-style law to be punishable by up to five years in prison in Georgia

Prison term for FARA-style law violation

The ruling “Georgian Dream” party intends to amend Georgia‘s Criminal Code to impose fines or up to five years in prison for failing to comply with an equivalent of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

A bill, described as a “literal translation” of FARA, was submitted to Georgia’s single-party parliament on 24 February.

Since the draft law is an exact, unadapted copy of FARA, it retains terminology specific to the U.S., such as “Congress,” “State Department,” and “President of the United States.” The head of the Georgian parliament’s legal department, Alexander Tabatadze, stated that the bill does not align with Georgia’s legal system.

The legal department has advised the parliamentary bureau to “consider whether it is appropriate to begin reviewing the proposed bill.”

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FARA was enacted in the U.S. before World War II to protect the public from Nazi propaganda.

According to Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the ruling Georgian Dream party, since the current U.S. government itself has acknowledged that certain organizations, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), “have been used to destabilize situations in various countries, including Georgia,” there is no alternative but to adopt this law to ensure transparency in the activities of Georgian NGOs.

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“The problem isn’t that Lavrov is shouting about Georgia’s open seat in ‘3+3’—it’s that Georgia is absent from the EU expansion meeting.”

On 5 February 2025, Mamuka Mdinaradze, a member of the ruling Georgian Dream party, announced that the party would pass a bill that is “an exact copy of the current version of the U.S. FARA law.”

“Last year, parliament passed a lighter version of FARA, which has not been fully implemented. Therefore, instead of it, we will adopt the new American law and ensure its full enforcement,” Mdinaradze stated.

The “lighter version” refers to the law “on Transparency of Foreign Influence,” passed in Georgia in May 2024. At the time, authorities also claimed it was modeled after FARA, though the opposition and civil society saw similarities with Russia’s “foreign agent” law.