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Journalists Report on Interference into Professional Activities by Georgian Dream Representatives

June 12, 2012

Tamar Pharadashvili

Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s security guards posed problems to journalists covering the June 10 rally organized in Kutaisi.

Journalist Zurab Vardiashvili of the website Liberali writes in his article entitled “Where is He Going to Take Parliament to Now” that in the course of the rally there was an iron barrier set up ten meters off the stage. Only journalists representing Channel 9 and Maestro as well as INFO-9 were allowed to move within the barricade.

“Having crossed over the iron rail two men wearing the Georgian Dream T-shirts immediately approached me. I presented my press card, telling them I was a journalist and wanted to move around freely like others but they seized and dragged me away,” Vardiashvili recalled. The Coalition representatives did not let another journalist Sopho Aptsiauri of the Liberali to move freely either.

Ia Bobokhidze, Editor, the Akhali Gazeti told a similar story. Reporting to Media.ge she said the security guards let neither her nor other journalists into the area while the reporters of Channel 9 and Maestro were freely working in. 

Maia Panjikidze, the Georgian Dream’s press speaker responded to the incident at the press conference. She made an apology to the journalists, pointing out no equal conditions were provided for all the journalists in the course of the rally but no such thing will ever be in place in the following rallies, she promised.

Panjikidze clarified she was unaware who made the decision on restricting journalists’ professional activities but, she said “that was spontaneous, due to security measures.” The press speaker refuted the provision of privileged conditions for Channel 9; she did not specify though the way the journalists had been selected with a right to move freely beyond the barrier.

Journalists faced problems not only during June 10 assembly.

Gela Mtivlishvili, head of Kakheti Information Center alleges following the launch of the INFO 9 agency the political coalition Georgian Dream quit providing information to other journalists. INFO 9 belongs to Channel 9 owned by Bidzina Ivanishvili’s spouse Ekaterina Khvedelidze.

“Let’s say the supporters of Georgian Dream are arrested. Unless we get info on our own the data gets accumulated in the Coalition HQ. Earlier they used to call us to notify of recent events, like other political activities, but now the information is accessible only to the INFO 9 agency,” said Mtivlishvili.

This kind of behavior by the Coalition representatives, he said, provides unequal conditions to reporters. “We would like to appeal to the Georgian Dream to provide equal access to information to everyone; they seem to act in the same way as they had been criticizing the authorities for.”

Media.ge

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