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Election year and media

February 18, 2020
 
Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

In 2020 Parliamentary Elections are scheduled in the country. The Georgian Dream, which rules the country for the second round, plans to take office after the third parliamentary elections too. The GD governance is already evaluated as: “Monocratic governance of Bidzina Ivanishvili and Mono-party ruling”, which is dangerous for democratic development of the state. International partners already made several statements of concern recently. Alongside the prosecution against political opponents, there are questions with regard the oppression of free media in the country. “Now the Adjara TV and Radio Public Broadcasting shall be protected from the government,” civil activist Nika Tsikaridze said, who believes that neither the Georgian Dream resisted the temptation of power and intends to continue governance with the full control of free media. 

“Nowadays, non-governmental TV-stations are critical, who have to work in unpleasant environment. The recent developments in the Adjara TV and Radio Broadcasting clearly demonstrate the attitude of the Government of Georgia towards the free media, when they appointed a person on the position of the director, who fires those employees from the company, who criticized the government,” Tsikaridze said.

Humanrights.ge interviewed the representatives of the media organizations in Shida Kartli region and asked about the media environment in the region; whether there are any signs of repressive policy against free media and journalists. 

Director of the Radio Mosaic Gvantsa Doluashvili said everything is still expected, however, the local government started the election period with funding the pro-governmental media from the state budget, which they will use for the election campaign.

“The launch of the election year mostly affected the relationship of the government and media. For example, in Gori, we saw in the beginning of the year how the government started encouragement of pro-governmental media – they searched new funding opportunities for the loyal media outlets. Even more, with the budget funding, the government tries to use as much social media as possible and to create new channels for the dissemination of the information. I mean online editions, pages in social networks, etc. 

In general, the government’s behavior is harmful because considering the law awareness of the society, there are more chances to disseminate propagandist materials and most important, state budget sources are spent on it,” Gvantsa Doluashvili said.

Giorgi Akhalkatsi, regional reporter of the Main Channel, told humanrights.ge that the government hinders professional activities of the representatives of those TV-companies, which are not controlled by them; for example they prohibit them to cover ongoing developments alongside the occupation line.

“Journalists face more and more problems when trying to enter the villages alongside the occupation line. Law enforcement bodies create all possible barriers for us and sometimes they ban us to enter the villages, which are not close to the occupation line at all. All in all, our government narrows the boundaries of our country for the reporters everyday. They say, it is done because of our security but I think it is interference in our journalistic activities that is punishable in our country. Their activities aim to hide information from the society what is happening in the villages alongside the occupation line,” Giorgi Akhalkatsi said.

Reporter of the Radio Liberty Goga Aptsiauri, who intensively reports about the urgent problems in the villages alongside the occupation line, said that he does not understand the purpose of restricting the movement of the journalists in the villages alongside the occupation line by the MIA. Moreover, nobody knows whether those restrictions will be removed during the pre-election campaign.

“Media environment is complicated, considering the fact that the villages alongside the occupation line are closed for journalists and we cannot report about the problems locals have there. Besides that, pre-election campaign is approaching and when political parties will launch their pre-election meetings in the villages, how will media act? Will the State Security Service and MIA allow the media representatives to enter the conflict zone and cover pre-election campaign? In this regard, it is difficult to predict the environment alongside the division line. Nowadays, journalists cannot even enter there and if similar situation continues, journalists may not cover the pre-election meetings of the candidates in these villages in the course of 2020 Parliamentary Elections. Usually, political parties start their activities in those villages in springs of the election years,” Goga Aptsiauri said.

Members of the Anti-Occupation Movement were also restricted to move about the villages nearby the occupation line. Representatives of the MIA and State Security Service state that restrictions were established due to security measures in the zone. However, nobody clarifies why the entrance of the journalists in those villages are dangerous, which are controlled by the Georgian Government and locals also live. In order to enter the villages, journalists need to get permission from the MIA; however, usually the Ministry refuses to issue similar permits both to journalists and members of the nongovernmental organizations. 

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