Human Rights Center Held a Press-Conference about Intimidation of Journalist

At 3:00 pm on August 1, 2011 the Human Rights Center held a press-conference in its office about oppression and intimidation of Mariam Otarashvili, journalist of the newspaper Resonance.

Journalist Mariam Otarashvili said she has been intimidated since 2009 when Akhalgori district governor Zurab Pitskhelauri visited the editorial office of the Resonance and suggested her to “correctly” write articles. More precisely, he requested her to write articles according to Pitskhelauri’s wishes and the journalist did not obey his request.

Otarashvili said the governor was particularly astonished with the reportage published in January 11, 2010 edition of Resonance about the Akhalgori district governor. The journalist said Pitskhelauri called her on January 12-13 and threatened with publishing discrediting materials about her. Otarashvili claims that the district governor talked in a foal language with her. On the same day, the governor visited the editorial office and warned the head of the news office Malkhaz Gagua that unless Otarashvili stopped writing “lies” about him, he would have published discrediting materials about the journalist.

As a result, the Newspaper Resonance published an article about the incident and warned the public servant that if similar incident occurs again, they will appeal to the court. Zurab Pitskhelauri stopped blackmailing the journalist but in May of 2011 he continued oppression and intimidation of the journalist.

The Human Rights Center is concerned about the oppression and intimidation of the Resonance’s journalist Mari Otarashvili and suggests the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia to properly address to the fact.

The Human Rights Center