How Georgia’s Crackdown on NGOs Puts Victims at Risk

The Georgian Dream party intensified it’s crackdown on civic actors in June 2025, when Tbilisi City Court granted the Anti-Corruption Bureau the right to demand administrative, financial, and personal information, including information on all their contractors and individual beneficiaries, from 1 January 2024 to 10 June 2025. 

‘Their demand to hand over sensitive personal data about women and children, without any legal justification, is not just unethical; it’s unconstitutional. It shows how far the ruling party is willing to go to control and intimidate independent voices,’ Sapari, a women’s rights organisation in Georgia, told FairPlanet. 

Sapari informed that in a broader context, the Anti-Corruption Bureau is simply a tool used by the current government to carry out undemocratic policies under the guise of legality. 

Sandro Baramidze, Human Rights and Rule of Law Program Manager at Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia), agreed that over the past two years, the Georgian Dream party has adopted new repressive laws and legislative amendments targeting civil society. 

‘By requesting beneficiaries’ personal data, the right to privacy, like all other fundamental rights, is persistently violated whenever it suits the authorities,’ he told FairPanet. 

Georgia’s Future Academy (GFA) also told FairPlanet that the Anti-Corruption Bureau and its head, Razhden Kuprashvili, acted without an adequate legal basis. 

‘It sought information covering the period from 1 January 2024 to 10 June 2025, even though the legislative provisions relied upon were adopted only on 1 April 2025 and entered into force on 31 May 2025,’ GFA stated.

The NGOs denounced the request as unlawful and expressed concern that sharing the extensive organisational data, including personal information relating to thousands of beneficiaries, exposes vulnerable groups to significant risk. School pupils, university students, civic activists, election observers, and victims experiencing violence, threats, or coercion could be exposed to retaliation from abusers, social stigma, or further harm, especially in cases where they are hiding or in the middle of legal proceedings. 

In 2025, the Sapari team was contacted by a child victim, who had entrusted her personal data to them. She feared that the pressure on the NGO to release her personal data would expose her to the perpetrator and create significant threats to her physical and emotional safety. At the request of the child, human rights lawyer Anna Arganashvili, together with her co-counsel Ketevan Bakhtadze, filed formal complaints with the Tbilisi City Court, seeking an order to prevent the disclosure of her sensitive data.

The answer was silence. 

As a last resort, the child submitted a complaint to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), requesting urgent protection of her highly sensitive personal information. In response, the UN CRC granted an interim measure and called on Georgia to refrain from requesting, disclosing, or handing over personal information about the beneficiary to any party, including the Anti-Corruption Bureau, in a statement issued in July 2025. This was only the second time the CRC had issued interim measures in Georgia. 

Arganashvili noted that this decision was powerful evidence that children’s rights were not an illusion for international human rights organisations.

‘I cannot fully express the sense of relief this child felt or how profoundly her trust in justice has been restored. She is not alone; other children in Georgia have begun to believe that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child truly sees and hears them.’   

Another recent ruling regarding the victim represented by Sapari was even more concerning. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that Georgian authorities failed to effectively investigate allegations of sexual abuse of a child by her stepfather, including possible penetrative offence. Investigations remained stagnant for almost five years, and the reasons for this prolonged inaction were unclear. The ECtHR ordered authorities to pay the applicant €10,000 in non-pecuniary damages. At a press conference, Sapari stated that it was the first ECtHR decision on Georgia concerning sexual violence.

Speaking to FairPlanet, they highlighted that these victories not only protected their beneficiaries but also signalled to the Georgian regime that international mechanisms are engaged and watching. 

Similarly, Baramidze pointed to a lack of judicial impartiality.

‘In the absence of fair justice at the national level, international human rights mechanisms remain the only avenue for victims of human rights violations to seek protection of their rights.’

To protect their beneficiaries, last year TI Georgia lodged eight applications with the Strasbourg Court on behalf of their beneficiaries, most of which concern violations of the freedom of expression and assembly. This year, they have already submitted two more applications. Recently, the Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court delivered a landmark judgement in a case concerning the authorities’ disproportionate measures against peaceful protest.

‘Recourse to such mechanisms serves not only to restore the violated individual rights but also, from a strategic perspective, to change the conduct of the authorities sooner or later,’ Baramidze concluded.

GFA explained that in a system where judicial independence is upheld, courts would be expected to prevent precisely this type of unjustified extensive data requests. 

‘Neither the first-instance courts nor the appellate courts fulfilled this essential function. This points to a misuse of legal instruments by administrative bodies, coupled with a failure of the judiciary to act as an effective check on such overreach,’ GFA stated.

Escalating Pressure on Human Rights Actors 

The crackdown prompted participating states in the OSCE to invoke the Moscow Mechanism on Georgia in January 2026. It was the first time in the country’s history that the Moscow Mechanism had been invoked against it. The aim of the mechanism is to document, assess, and offer recommendations on recent developments violating human rights and their impact on Georgian civil society and other structural components of a democratic society.

However, earlier in March, the Georgian Parliament approved amendments to the Law “On Grants.” According to the new law, entities and individuals receiving foreign funding must get prior state approval. The law’s broad definition of foreign grants and legal uncertainty allows for selective enforcement. 

GFA stated that repressive measures deprive many young people of opportunities to develop critical thinking, civic awareness, and practical skills beyond the classroom.

‘Over the past two years, we have been unable to implement our flagship project, “#Idebate,” due to the wave of repressive, Russian-style legislation targeting civil society.’

Baramidze highlighted the case of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), which announced it was shifting to an emergency operating mode and suspending free legal aid after 31 years of providing free legal assistance to more than 1.3 million people.

He also noted that the leaders of NGOs, including Eka Gigauri, TI Georgia Executive Director, were repeatedly subpoenaed and interrogated by the prosecutor’s office before magistrate judges as part of investigations into alleged sabotage and other crimes against the state, the most serious of which carries the penalty of up to 15 years in prison. Despite the threat of prosecution, NGOs, including TI Georgia, have filed applications with the European Court of Human Rights against repressive measures taken by the authorities against the civil sector.

‘The application concerning the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence is currently at the communication stage. Complaints related to other laws, including the case of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), will likely soon proceed to the examination stage.’  

Sapari believes that the communities they serve are supporting them for the right to exist as a civil society organisation.

‘The Sapari team has remained united, even under threat of prosecution. Our refusal to comply has strengthened trust with our beneficiaries and demonstrated that we will not abandon them even when the cost is high.’ 

Despite growing pressure on individual actors and civil society, organisations say they have become more united to protect the communities they serve, including through legal action at the international level. For them, the issue is no longer simply a shrinking space to operate but the broader question of whether independent civil society can continue to exist under pressure at home while seeking protection abroad.