TBILISI -- The speaker of Georgia's parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, said on June 4 that the South Caucasus nation's ruling Georgian Dream party has initiated a bill "on family values and the protection of minors," as well as amendments to 18 laws that would limit LGBT rights.
According to Papuashvili, the ruling party has enough votes to support the proposal.
SEE ALSO: Despite Mass Protests, Georgia's 'Foreign Agent' Bill Becomes LawThe bill would ban transgender surgeries, child adoption by same-sex couples, indicating gender that is other than male or female on official documents, and organizing public events propagating same-sex relations.
The bill will be discussed in its first reading soon, adding that the second and third readings of the legislation will be discussed in the fall, Papuashvili said.
Papuashvili also said that May 17, currently marked as Family Values Day, will soon be announced as a state holiday and added as such to the nation's Labor Code.
Papuashvili's statement came one day after he signed a controversial law on "foreign agents" amid protests by opposition and pro-EU activists and warnings from the United States and the European Union saying that the move jeopardizes Georgia's path toward integration into the European Union.
The law, which has been widely criticized as modeled on a similar Russian law used by the Kremlin to repress dissent and stifle democratic opposition, requires civil society and media organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign sources to submit to oversight that could encompass sanctions for as-yet-undefined criminal offenses.
Papuashvili said on June 3 that the Justice Ministry will work out the tools for the implementation of the "foreign agent" law in 60 days after which all NGOs and media groups that receive financial support from abroad will be obliged to register and report their finances for 2023.
"And then it will become clear what some of the foreign finances are spent for, and we will learn that it sometimes is spent for radicalism, for some organizations that have been involved in terror and threats lately. Unfortunately, the foreign finances are linked to such organizations these days," Papuashvili said.