{"id":1891,"date":"2016-02-16T14:21:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T14:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1891"},"modified":"2016-02-16T14:21:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T14:21:02","slug":"georgia-drops-controversial-blasphemy-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1891","title":{"rendered":"Georgia drops controversial blasphemy law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By Commonspace.eu and Agencies<br \/>\n<em>commonspace.eu<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The sponsor of a controversial law which would have outlawed \u201cinsult of religious feelings\u201d in Georgia has withdrawn the bill, it emerged on Monday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1892\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1892\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Covcas-Tbilisi-Trinity-Cathedral-Orthodox-Christmas.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1892\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1892\" src=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Covcas-Tbilisi-Trinity-Cathedral-Orthodox-Christmas-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"Georgian Christians celebrate Orthodox Christmas at the Tbilisi Trinity Cathedral on 7 January 2014\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Covcas-Tbilisi-Trinity-Cathedral-Orthodox-Christmas-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Covcas-Tbilisi-Trinity-Cathedral-Orthodox-Christmas.jpg 490w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1892\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Georgian Christians celebrate Orthodox Christmas at the Tbilisi Trinity Cathedral on 7 January 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The bill, which was endorsed by parliament\u2019s human rights committee earlier this month, would have imposed a 300 lari ($120) fine for religious insults, with a fine ten times that for desecrating a religious symbol.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Soso Jachvliani from the leading Georgian Dream coalition withdrew the proposal, parliamentary speaker Davit Usupashvili confirmed on February 15.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The bill caused divisions both outside the ruling coalition and within it, with coalition members such as Tamar Kordzaia of the Republican Party opposing it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It was strongly criticized by human rights groups, including No To Phobia, a Georgia based coalition of NGOs, and Amnesty International.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A similar bill was also proposed, and dropped, in late 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By Commonspace.eu and Agencies commonspace.eu The sponsor of a controversial law which would have outlawed \u201cinsult of religious feelings\u201d in Georgia has withdrawn the bill, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=1891\" title=\"Georgia drops controversial blasphemy law\">[more &gt;&gt;&gt;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-georgia","category-georgia-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1893,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891\/revisions\/1893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}