On 4 June, Georgia's ruling party outlined a package of draft laws that would ban what it calls "LGBT propaganda", mirroring similar legislation used to crack down on gay rights in Russia and, more recently, Hungary. Tato Londaridze, owner of the first gay club in the Caucasus and Mariam Kvaratskhelia, co-founder of LGBTQ rights group Tbilisi Pride, tell AFP that the legislation could spell the end for their organisations and force them into exile.
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00:00 and dancers, singers, entertainers, and they were known, everybody knew they were like...
00:05 I think it's very, very concerning.
00:08 It is, and on our board, we organize queer events seriously.
00:14 Somehow, in our, like, it's on our logo, and it's quite, it's quite...
00:18 It was never easy, and Georgia was never, you know, like, very LGBTQI-friendly country, unfortunately.
00:23 But during the last two years, we see, like, political homophobia really intensify.
00:29 What we, political homophobia is when the government, when the politicians, the ruling party,
00:36 they are entire LGBT, and they make extremely homophobic comments and narratives all the time.
00:45 And we worked together to, you know, scrap everything.
00:50 Agents sold on money, I don't know how to say this.
00:54 And yeah, this is one of the walls, they, like, vandalized.
01:00 This is, like, Bašlovan Street, that is the place when, like, crazy series,
01:07 and they are really fragile, really insecure all over the place.
01:12 Also, when you enter the office...
01:14 The fact that the law was adopted, it doesn't discourage us to continue the fight, no.
01:23 We are very determined to keep the fight going.
01:27 We are going to have huge information campaigns, a lot of work in Tbilisi and in the regions,
01:34 a lot of campaigns, meetings, and so on and so forth,
01:41 in order to, you know, have the victory during upcoming parliamentary elections in October.
01:47 Our partner organizations, because we worked with them a few years ago,
01:52 they have access to any move we make, any communication...
01:56 Most of them are afraid, like, most of them are thinking to leave this country and go somewhere,
02:05 work or live, I don't know.
02:08 I know several people already bought tickets, yeah.
02:15 And I think at last, in the end, in Georgia, there will not be queer, open queer people.
02:25 This is Tbilisi, trust me.
02:28 We are making stage, big shows over here.
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