Georgian Young Lawyers Sue Imedi-TV and Rustavi 2 in Regulatory Commission and MP Goka Gabashvili in the Court

“Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association shall apologize to me!” stated MP Goka Gabashvili in the interview“Young Lawyers Sue Goka Gabashvili in the Court”  with the newspaper New Generation.

Goka Gabashvili, representative of the parliamentary majority: “No matter what kind of expertise GYLA brings to deceive the public we all understand that this is a lie. They could have obtained documents, see the testimonies and consult with the MIA Ministry. Instead of this, they hold a press conference, as a result of which a Republican Party states that the crime has been committed and there is an attempt of organized cover-up of it. So many lies are impossible. Nothing is surprising from the Republican Party, but the organization which claims to be respectable participates in the preliminary staged lie, is not very serious…

I do not know what they showed to Britain. I know one thing: Georgian NGO obviously uses lie and fraud to slander the government and in two hours the political party which is directly linked to this NGO uses this information. I think they got involved in the political game and lost the common sense. I am not going to submit any complaint and dispute the case with GYLA. If they submitted the complaint, I do not know what they are going to achieve with it. Once again I offer them to restore their reputation, apologize to the public for the lie revealed by every information outlet.”

GYLA is submitting complaint against the TV companies Rustavi 2 and Imedi. The complaint will be submitted to the self-regulatory commission of these broadcasters. GYLA is accusing these TV companies in spreading the incorrect information.

Moreover, GYLA sues Rustavi 2 in spreading the wrong photos. According to the head of the organization, Tamar Chugoshvili, Rustavi 2 substituted one photo with another one and made totally vague conclusion,” – reports the newspaper Rezonansi in the article entitled: “GYLA: “Rustavi 2 changed one of our photos/GYLA sues Imedi and Rustavi 2 in the regulation commission and Goka Gabashvili – in the court.”

“GYLA alleges that it did not have one of the photos disseminated by the TV Company (the one where the individual is dressed in the blue shirt) thus it could not have had sent it to the television. However, Rustavi 2 states that they covered the photo material which was given out at the press conference by GYLA. According to Chugoshvili, the case of disinformation had occurred in the past as well. Back in that time, TV Imedi had to acknowledge that the information covered by them was incorrect. Chugoshvili is sure that the same will happen this time and Imedi and Rustavi 2 will have to acknowledge that the information covered by them was wrong. However, the heads of the information services of the TV companies have conflicting opinion.”

“There is an Ethics Council and the court and GYLA can address them. I do not think that we covered wrong information. As for the photos, we disseminated whatever they provided. We showed the photo material which they used at the press conference. Check their press release; compare it with the report covered by Kurieri and find ten differences. I doubt that you can find any,” – states the head of Rustavi 2 information service Giorgi Laperashvili. Mate Kirvalidze, the head of information service of TV Company Imedi states that he does not have information regarding this statement of GYLA and GYLA has right to submit the complaint to the court,” – states the publication.

“GYLA plans to submit complaint to the court against one of the leaders of parliamentary majority Goka Gabashvili as well. GYLA accuses Goka Gabashvili in tarnishing its work reputation. As Tamar Chugoshvili stated the statement made by Goka Gabashvili on September 6th was tarnishing the work reputation of the organization. Particularly, Goka Gabashvili stated: “The organization which claims to be objective, should not disseminate the deliberate lie.” Gabashvili also noted that GYLA will have to apologize,” – states the author of the article of Rezonansi.

“First of all we are going to submit complaint against Rustavi 2 and Imedi since they covered the incorrect information in their reports. They lied about the facts. Particularly, they stated that the expertise and conclusions were made by us and that we falsified provisions which are absolute lie. GYLA did not conduct any expertise and no conclusions were made by us. We just presented whatever the British experts concluded. Rustavi 2 used photos incorrectly. We sent them other photos and the expertise singlehandedly stated what we published. However, Rustavi 2 substituted one photo with another one and we received totally vague conclusion as a result. We consider that this is grounds to submit complaint against this company and we are going to do so,” – stated Tamar Chugoshvili with the correspondent of Rezonansi.

“We are not going to submit complaint against the TV companies. There is a regulatory commission and we are going to submit complaint there and request that Rustavi 2 and Imedi change the content of the reportages and admit that they provided incorrect information and deceived the public. The legislation does not give opportunity to oblige the TV to publicly apologize. But we will request that they provide the space and state that they misled the public… As for the comment of Goka Gabashvili, this was insulting the reputation of the organization. It stated that we were falsifying the facts which are not true. We are going to submit complaint against this issue to the court. However, we are planning the consultations and have not made the ultimate decision yet,” – states Tamar Chugoshvili.

According to interpressnews Presss Digest