Registan.net

From USAID-financed Civil.ge:

Saakashvili said late on August 29:
• Russia wants regime change in Georgia;
• ‘Patriot Act’ is needed;
• No civil liberties will be restricted;
• State should resume party funding.

President Saakashvili said on August 29 Georgia needed, what he called, “a patriotic act” to deter possible attempts of government overthrow through foreign intervention.

Speaking with the local authorities in the port town of Poti late on August 29, where the Russian forces maintain two outposts, Saakashvili said that Russia’s major goal in Georgia was to overthrow his government…

Saakashvili said that he planned to propose the parliament to develop “the patriotic act” and added that this new legislature – details of which he did not elaborate – would no way infringe the civil liberties.

“This will be carried out under the condition of maintaining democracy; freedom and liberties,” he added and repeated it for coupe of more times.

He said that the act was needed to prevent “external attempts to destabilize the country.”

The first time when the ruling party politicians started talking about the need for, what they called, “a U.S. Patriot Act-style” legislature, was in the summer, 2006, shortly after the Kodori events.

When some opposition politicians condemned the Georgian forces crack down on rebel warlord Emzar Kvitsiani’s militia groups in the upper Kodori Gorge in July, 2006, they were immediately labeled by the ruling party politicians as traitors. Nika Gvaramia, who is now the Justice Minister, and at that time was a lawmaker, said on July 29, 2006 that the Parliament had to develop “a legislature similar to the one which is in the United States, I mean the Patriot Act… which will be directed against treacherous statements against the motherland.”

The issue, however, was shelved shortly after that and no one has ever raised the matter again up to now.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call this Georgia’s 9/11, since they’re not at all the same. But what the hell is a Georgian Patriot Act?

Stumble it!