Georgian PEN-Club Appeals to the International Congress of the World Writers and Media Workers
September 29, 2010
The appeal was prepared by the board of the Georgian PEN-Club whose members are: Davit Kartvelishvili (president), Shorena Shaverdashvili (vice-president), Rati Amaghlobeli (vice-president), Keti Kighuradze (international secretary), Naira Gelashvili, Irakli Kakabadze, Giorgi Kekelidze, Dato Turashvili and Nino Zhvania.
Freedom of Expression in Georgia
Since the Rose Revolution of 2003 the democracy and freedom of expression has been fading away in Georgia. The team of the young governmental officials exposed their disrespect towards the law and person from the very beginning which resulted into a set of unlawful activities that still continues.
Nowadays, Georgia has completely authoritarian and sole government which is identified by its voluntarism and aggressiveness against the people with different opinion. The parliament, the executive authority and the judiciary system, as well as most part of the electronic media – mostly those who broadcast national-wide – obey the directives of the government with the president on its top. Today, nobody will ever win a court proceeding particularly in the field of human rights if it opposes the interests of the ruling party.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs controls people and organizations who oppose the authority; the phone-conversations of the members of the most NGOs are listened to.
The people, who participated in the protest demonstrations and opposed the government, are dismissed from works. Among them are film-directors, band-conductors, poets.
Non-conformist artists, scientists and other citizens are marginalized, replaced by the people who fancy the government as well as by non-governmental organizations who are largely praised by the government-controlled media-sources – the six TV-Channels most of all.
Economic experts think the population is getting impoverished on purpose for their further instrumentalism: to bribe people during the pre-election campaign, to bribe intellectuals for the creation of the ideology necessary for the government – first of all for the justification of the ruthless dispersal of the peaceful protest demonstrations which happened on November 7, 2007, in May of 2009 and on June 15, 2009. The same is done regarding the IDP population who are inhumanly evicted from their accommodations.
In similar situation the condition of the writers are extremely alarming. On the one hand they suffer from financial hardship because of the total unemployment in Georgia and because the non-conformist writers decline the privileges offered by the government; on the other hand, the writers lack the effective space – like television – to express their positions. Besides that, as soon as we express our protest towards the government’s activities, various types of repressions start against us. For example, physical assault and detention of the poets Zurab Rtveliashvili, Irakli Kakabadze, Shota Gagarini and Aleksi Chighvinadze at different times; repressions against the author of the documentary films Vakhtang Komakhidze and non-governmental organization “Caucasian House” after what Zurab Rtveliashvili and Vakhtang Komakhidze had to flee from Georgia and to seek political shelter abroad; as for the cultural-educational and peace-keeping organization “Caucasian House”, where writers, poets and translators work, face the danger of losing the office… It is not the end of the persecution against the artists who are critical about the government.
The freedom of expression is restricted by the conservative mass consciousness and religious obscurantism. Nevertheless, we are not about to list the examples of similar facts here.
Lack of healthy literary criticism supports popularization of the works of low value; however, sometimes authors of similar commercial projects deserve public anger. The last example of this public anger was the scandal about the book by 20-year-old debutant writer Erekle Deisadze. The scandal turned into a serious quarrel. Not a single participant of the protest demonstration appealed to the court because the judiciary system is completely controlled by the government; thus, people have to go out in the streets and protect their rights outside the judicial system.
Non-conformist writers of Georgia really need the support of the international organizations in order not to allow the freedom of expression to finally die in this country which will further support the disappearance the chance of the democratic development.
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