The Georgian Parliament should reject a draft law that would designate media outlets as “foreign agents,” and the authorities should investigate allegations of police brutality against journalists, hold those responsible accountable, and protect media members reporting on the ongoing protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Friday.

On April 17, the Georgian Parliament passed a first reading of the “On Transparency of Foreign Influence” bill, according to news reports.

The bill, reintroduced by the ruling Georgian Dream party earlier this month after mass protests forced its withdrawal last year, would require nonprofits and media outlets receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to join a registry of “organizations pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”

During protests against the bill on the night of April 16, riot police assaulted at least four journalists covering them, according to independent trade group Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, and the journalists, who spoke to CPJ by telephone and messaging app.

“Georgia’s ruling party looks intent on rushing through ‘foreign agent’ legislation as a tool to brandish against critical media ahead of the October parliamentary elections,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “It would be better if authorities in Georgia showed a commitment to European democratic standards by swiftly investigating allegations of police violence against journalists covering mass protests against the bill and bringing those responsible to justice.”

In an April 17 statement following the bill’s first reading, the European Union delegation to Georgia said that the law “is not in line with EU core norms and values” and its final adoption “would negatively impact Georgia’s progress” in its bid to join the EU.

The proposed legislation would require externally-funded organizations to provide detailed annual accounts, including information about the source, amount, and purpose of any funds received or spent, for a publicly available register. Organizations that fail to register or to provide such data would be subject to fines of 25,000 lari (US$9,500) and monthly fines of 20,000 lari ($7,500) for continued non-compliance.

Georgia’s pro-EU President Salome Zourabichvili, who has previously promised to veto the law, told CNN on April 18 that the law is an “exact duplicate” of Russia’s ‘foreign agent’ law “that was adopted a few years ago [in Russia] and then complemented in order to crush civil society.” Georgian Dream controls a majority large enough to override a presidential veto and has vowed to pass the law by the end of the current parliamentary session in June.