On May 30, the guest of the program “Solidarity Time” program on TV4, Dito Japaridze, said that according to the “Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA) operating in the United States, before making any kind of a public announcement, those who are registered in their Public Registry must declare that they are agents.
Dito Japaridze: “It turns out that according to the American FARA, all those agents of foreign countries, agents of influence, who are included in this list, as soon as they start making public statements on television, in the press, in other news media or in public meetings, etc., they are obliged to declare, to start speaking with this text, that I, for example, Tina Khidasheli, an agent of the American CIA…”
The claim that FARA requires registrants to begin public announcements by saying that they are agents is false. Paragraph 612 of the law spells out the requirements for those who are registered, but there is nothing written about the public recognition of being an agent. A similar practice, which is talked about in the program, actually operates in Russia.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) includes several paragraphs. The most extensive of them is paragraph 612. It describes the requirements related to registration. The paragraph “Requirements for registration” includes such details as what kind of information must be indicated in the database, the terms of registration, and obligations such as information about the composition of employees, income, any political activity, the identity of clients, concluded contracts, etc. must be submitted for registration. A separate paragraph is devoted to the component of fines and enforcement.
No section of FARA requires registrants to begin public announcements by acknowledging that they are agents. The only obligation that a FARA registrant has when speaking is to present only the terms of an oral agreement, even if no contract is signed between the parties.
Unlike the American FARA, organizations or individuals declared as agents in Russia have an obligation to recognize that they are agents. So-called agents have to indicate anywhere on their text, video, podcast, audio recording, personal social media post, repost, media material, social media post comment, business card, or letterhead that it was produced or distributed by an Agent, or contains information from the Agent.
Persons declared to be agents of foreign influence begin their posts with an admission of being an agent and write template texts in all of them. For example, in February 2023, the Russian state declared the singer Zemfira as a foreign agent, since then the singer started her posts on Facebook with a confession writing that the material was prepared or distributed by an agent. There is a similar demand for the media. Media outlets must attach a template text to each media product stating that the media has the status of a foreign agent.
The FARA has been a target of disinformation in the past as well. “Myth Detector” has debunked information of similar content many times in the past:
- DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE GD’S DRAFT LAW ON FOREIGN INFLUENCE AND DRAFT LAWS OF FRANCE AND THE EUROPEAN UNION
- HOW DID PRO-GOVERNMENT ACTORS USE THE DOCUMENT BY FARA TO DISCREDIT FORMER PRESIDENT MARGVELASHVILI?
- DID THE GOVERNOR VETO THE “AGENTS LAW” IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA AFTER BLINKEN’S STATEMENT ON SANCTIONS?
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