We, the co-ordinating committee of the Medieval Caucasus Network, would like to express our concern regarding the Foreign Agents Law recently passed by the Georgian parliament with the following statement. We wish to express our deep concern and fears about the potential impacts of these legal changes, and to extend our solidarity to those protesting against this legislation.
As a scholarly network, we have a broad responsibility where possible to not take sides on national and international issues on any sort of factional, national, or partisan basis. Our remit covers the whole of the Caucasus, and fostering dialogue and communication across boundaries of identity or politics is an important part of our work. We take that charge very seriously, and it takes exceptional circumstances for us to make a direct statement on an issue of this kind. We do, nonetheless, have obligations to our members, to the conditions necessary for the safe and open pursuit of knowledge, and to the basic principles of human rights and justice that we all share.
It is with great sadness that we cannot help but conclude that the legislation that is being passed in Georgia breaches these latter principles, and that the present circumstances do constitute an exceptional threat to Georgian academia and our colleagues, friends and students there. In labelling and invasively monitoring anyone associated with international funding, the new legislation being passed in Georgia will have a deeply chilling effect on the ability of international partners to engage in academic exchange, and will create unacceptable risks to colleagues and friends who engage in the everyday processes of scholarly work. The possibility that this bill could enable state harassment, discrimination in work contexts, and direct intimidation, as well as the direct loss of potential funding and support, has not been addressed effectively by the government of Georgia. This, combined with the hard-line rhetoric and tactics deployed against critics of the legislation, is an extremely worrying sign.
We cannot reasonably remain silent about such events, nor can we pretend that our collective ability to engage with Georgia and with Georgian academia will be unimpeded by them. Even in our small corner of academia, we have had tremendous successes working with Georgian friends and colleagues in recent years, and to see not only that work but our colleagues themselves put under threat for voicing dissent is something we have to firmly stand against.
We therefore wish to express our solidarity and support to friends who are protesting and campaigning right now to stop this legislation and against state suppression of the international connections that are so valuable to all of us. To colleagues and students across Georgia who are opposing these actions: we share your stance and we stand by you. We hope most of all that these current threats to Georgian civil society and scholarship will be lifted swiftly, and that we will continue to be able to work in future in an environment in which academic communication and outward-looking scholarship are valued and supported, and in which the human rights and freedoms of people across Georgian society are respected in full.
The statement expresses our view as convenors of the Medieval Caucasus Network, and as concerned friends and colleagues, and does not necessarily represent the views of all of the MCN’s members. That being said, if you would like to re-share this statement and approve of its stance, please do not hesitate to disseminate this message.
Network convenors: James Baillie, Nick Evans, Kate Franklin, John Latham-Sprinkle and Bella Radenovic. Statement made 18/05/2024.