www.hridc.tv Break the Silence!

Ana Sheshaberidze

On November 19, the Human Rights Center represented new video-portal on human rights www.hridc.tv at the Art Café “Caravan”. The Human Rights Center  also represtend the new film of Giorgi Janledize “Boring Up and Down” prepared by the TV-studio of the Center.

Executive director of the Human Rights Center Ucha Nanuashvili informed the invited guests about the goals of the new initiative of the center. He said the creation of the new video-portal was first of all caused by serious problems in Georgian media: “Development of new media sources became necessary because of lack of impartial and critical informaiton. Hereinafter, our video-portal will enable us to document human rights situation not only on paper but we will already have chance to use modern multimedia, internet sources for the purpose and provide society with more infromation about human rights.”

According to Ucha Nanuashvili, users can also watch films prepared by other independent studios on the web-portal. The www.hridc.tv cooperates with famous independent studios like “Monitor”, “Reporter”, “GNS” “Studio RE”, etc. Besides that, every user can get registered at the website and upload his/her video, photo and audio materials on human rights on the website.

Ucha Nanuashvili: “We try to translate every important material – films and other products – into English for our website. We want to make our video-products on human rights avalaible for English-speaking users. Thus, the www.hridc.tv will be bilingual website – in Georgian and English languages.

“The films on the website might be documentary and journalistic investigation too. You can see special TV-items prepared by the TV-studio of the Human Rights Center on the website. Structure of the website enables the users to search films and other materials according to categories ( right of expression, media, minorities, IDPs, etc). We want users from the regions of Georgia to upload their videos on the website in order to make their information available for the society. We intend to organize trainings for bloggers in order to make it popular in the regions of Georgia too. We also want to develop video-blogging in Georgia.”

Audience liked the film of Giorgi Janelidze “Boring Up and Down.” The film is about ecological and social problems caused by the explosion of particularly large amount of oil in the bore-well in the village of Ninotsminda in Sagarejo district.

Giorgi Janelidze, journalist for the Human Rights Center and editor of the www.hridc.tv: “Boring Up and Down” is a first investigation film for the video-portal of the Human Rights Center and debut for me as a journalistic investigaiton as well. In September of 2004 it was impossible to stop the the explosion of the oil in Ninotsminda village for three days. Some time later, oncological diseases increased in the area. However, representatives of the healthcare system, as well as local governmental officials and represetnatives of the Oil Company “Canargo” claim the explosion has no connection with the diseases. We interviewed each party of this incident to express their opinions about explosion and its results.”

After the presentation of the film, member of the Conservative Party Lasha Chkhartishvili and journalist Gubaz Megrelidze spoke about the importance of the initiative of the Human Rights Center and journalistic investigation of Giorgi Janelidze.

Lasha Chkhartishvili said documenting human rights information in video-format and informing people both in Georgia and abroad about it is very important job. “As for the film –“Boring Up and Down” - people often forget many things and they have forgotten the incident of Ninotsminda as well. The film of the HRIDC.TV will remind people about the concrete example of the situation when the government does not support its population when it is urgently needed. International experience shows to us that in similar cases the government supports the victim side. Our government is oriented on personal profit and do not care about people. Thus, it is not strange to see corruptive deals with large companies. Meanwhile, the conditions of the people worsen because they have two rivals – government of Georgia and the large company which is responsible for the explosion in Ninotsminda village.”

Gubaz Megrelidze, independent journalist: “Ninotsminda’s case is very familiar to me because I was one of those first journalists who investigated the accident. Short time after the disaster, I witnessed terrible situation. I met victimized people. I saw rashes and spots on their bodies which were caused by the eruption of the oil. Unfortunately, we could not record it because at that time journalists did not have proper equipment. I think, your website will support the society to get complete information about current situation; it will also support development of the democracy, establishment of the justice and in the end you will do huge job. I wish you success and working on many critical materials.”

Nana Lezhava, Studio GNS: “Video-portal hridc.tv is an interesting initiative because reportedly media is in difficult situation today. Our studio often uses information published on the Human Rights Center. Now, we will pay attention to the materials prepared by the hridc.tv. Similar cooperation is very important for every journalist because we will get more information from other websites.”

At the end Ucha Nanuashvili stated the www.hridc.tv will become more complete and new materials will be added to the website soon.

All in all, the first and only video-website in Georgia on human rights will present the video-materials on the topics which are not usually highlighted by leading media sources. After getting registered on the website, amateurs can also upload their documentary films, journalistic investigations, TV-reportages, interviews, video-rolls and etc on the website.

Let Us Break the Silence Together!

The project is supported by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and National Endowment for Democracy (NED).