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Opposition Requested Guarantees for Freedom of Speech

January 30, 2008

On January 29 the United Opposition announced number of demands at the press conference at the Hotel “Courtyard Marriot”. They believe that those demands will lessen the political tension in the country and support the democracy in Georgia.

The addressees of the statement are Chairperson of the Georgian Parliament, Nino Burjanadze, governments of foreign countries and international organizations. One of 17 demands deals with the freedom of speech.

The members of the opposition believe that in order to guarantee the freedom of speech the Board of Trustees of the Public Broadcaster must be staffed on the basis of parity principle sooner than possible. In addition to that the candidate of the Director General of the TV Station must be agreed between the members of the Board of Trustees. Opposition also demands to set up Georgian National Communication Commission (GNCC) based on parity principle.

“We also demand that the monitoring system of private TV stations - so-called “Michnik’s Group”, should start assume its functions immediately.”

Another demand of the opposition is “to ensure publicity and presence of media in public institutions including court sessions”.

The statement is signed by three presidential candidates who participated in presidential elections on January 5: Levan Gachechiladze (United Opposition), David Gamkrelidze (Leader of the New Rights) and Gia Maisashvili (Leader of the “Party for Future”); the statement was also signed by the leaders of 10 political parties: “National Forum”, “Freedom”, “Movement for the United Georgia”, “Conservative Party”, “Industry Will Save Georgia”, “Republican Party”, “Way of Georgia”, “Georgian Group”, “Chven Tviton”, “People’s Party”.

The competition to select nine candidates for the Board of Trustees of the Public Broadcaster was announced on January 21. Any individual or group of people can to promote their candidates within 30 days after the competition was announced.

“Michnik’s Group” was set up after November 7, 2007. It was supposed to monitor Georgian TV stations and provide corresponding recommendations to them.

As for the transparent court hearings, according to the amendments to the legislation introduced in July of 2007, photo and video-recording of court hearings are prohibited; however, journalists are still allowed to attend trials.

Source: Media.ge

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