Statement of the Coalition for Media Advocacy

Coalition for Media Advocacy made statement in regard with the photo-reporters’ case. The Coalition believes that the government hides case materials from the society on purpose and oppresses representatives of the Georgian media.

The full text of the statement:

“On July 7, 2011, Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs arrested four Georgian photo-reporters. They are accused of espionage; more precisely, according to the MIA, they collected, stored and shared the secret documents and other data about the Georgian state to the representative of the foreign organization. The “photo-reporters’ case” has caused unprecedented public interest because its results and process directly impacts the development of the free media in Georgia. Despite that, apparently, the MIA is not going to make the case public. On July 9, the MIA published some evidence against the detainees but none of them convinced the society in the validity of the accusation. Even Gedenidzes’ confession statement could not prove that Zurab Kurtsikidze and Gia Abdaladze were working for a spy network.

We think, due to lack of information today, the society cannot properly evaluate the facts and make correct conclusions. We receive only fragments of unconvincing information. It makes us think that the government hides the case details from the society on purpose and oppresses the Georgian media representatives.

The Coalition for Media Advocacy believes that every independent Georgian journalist has feeling of danger because of non-transparent investigation of the case; relatively, the government can punish any journalist with similar method. Consequently, the Coalition requests: the governmental agencies to remove the Top Secret from the case and to make the investigation process transparent. It will be correct decision of the government of Georgia.

We state that we cannot stand ignorance of the public interest from the government. Unless case details are disclosed in near future, the activities of the government will be assessed as oppression on Georgian media and journalism and the detained people will be prisoners of conscience. Thus, we use various forms of public activities and oppression to release the journalists from imprisonment.”

Information Center of Kakheti