Georgia: Burdzhanadze's party is against "Freedom Charter"

The opposition party of ex-parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze - "Democratic Movement-United Georgia" stands against adoption by the Parliament of Georgia in the first hearing of the bill named "The Freedom Charter".

As stated at a press conference on November 4 by Georgiy Kobakhidze, spokesman of the above party, the bill "is roughly violating human rights and brings a serious risk of stronger authoritarian rule in the country." In particular, according to his version, the right to freedom of assembly and manifestation, suffrage and property rights are violated.

"The bill violates the Constitution of Georgia in regards to protection of human rights. Furthermore, this is another step to raising a country's new wave of authoritarianism," the IA "News-Georgia" quoted Mr Kobakhidze as saying.

According to his story, the "Democratic Movement-United Georgia" advises the authorities to deal with the Bolshevik mentality not by banning Soviet symbols, but, above all, by changing their own thinking and mentality.

The Burdzhanadze's party finds the provisions of the bill, which assume approval of the practice of video surveillance in public places and provision law enforcement bodies with information on banking transactions in excess of 10,000 laris, unacceptable.

"At the time when racketeering against businesses is commonplace for the authorities, this provision causes special concern. No doubt, such total control of financial transactions will negatively affect the business environment, which suffers from so many problems without it," the "Georgia -Online" quoted Mr Kobakhidze as saying.

Dzhondi Bagaturiya, leader of the parliamentary party "Kartuli Dasi", also spoke negatively on the Charter; he expressed his protest already during consideration of the bill in parliament, treating the discussion of the document as "doing nothing".

Members of the parliamentary faction of Christian Democrats demanded to provide information about the financial component of the new bill.

The consideration of the bill was initiated by its author Giya Tortladze, chair of the opposition faction "Strong Georgia".