The Russian Threat That Triggered a Fistfight in Parliament
Chaos erupted in the Georgian parliament on Monday when opposition leader Aleko Elisashvili took a running head start and slammed his fist into another lawmaker during a debate on a controversial new “foreign influence” bill.
The punch then spiraled into an all-out brawl between politicians over the controversial bill, which would require organizations with over 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence. Critics in Georgia have compared it to laws in Russia that Moscow has used to tamp down on dissent.
While politicians brawled inside parliament, another hectic scene unfolded outside, with thousands of demonstrations taking to the streets in protest of the law chanting “Russians! Russians!”