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TV Company Maestro’s Call for Help

February 13, 2009

Mamuka Ghlonti, the founder and General Producer of cable channel Maestro claims that his TV Company might be raided.

Mamuka Ghlonti told newspaper Rezonansi that after having launched program Sakani # 5 (Cell # 5) some people often call in TV Company Maestro with warnings and threats. Moreover, the associates from Special Operative Department (SOD) and Constitutional Security Department (CSD) call and warn about upcoming threat.

“We receive several calls each day. Some phone calls are friendly, some are not. We are warned and even threatened,” said Mamuka Ghlonti in his interview with Rezonansi. He said that the people who warn or threaten Maestro call on company’s telephone.

“… We have many friends that work in SOD and CSD. They tell us that something is being planned in these institutions against our TV Company. They say that various forms of raid are under consideration. They (law enforcers) might destroy our equipment or transmitters. We consider that taking into consideration the hubbub that was caused by our programs, including “Sakani #5” which has very high rating, the threat is real,” says Mamuka Ghlonti.

“Sakani # 5” is a 24- hour TV- show that has been on air since January 20, 2009. Giorgi Gachechiladze, a famous Georgia musician (artistic pseudonym Utsnobi) lives in an imitated cell and demands the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Spectators can watch Gachechiladze through the cameras that are installed in the cell. The cameras are on 24 hours a day.

Gachechiladze claims that he will leave the cell only when Saakashvili resigns. The TV-show gains more and more popularity day by day.
“The “prisoner” (Gachechiladze) is mainly visited by the opponents of the Government of Georgia. They talk mainly on politics. The president does not pay any attention to the program but some of his team members expresses the irritation with the program openly. Mamuka Ghlonti alleges that Giorgi Targamadze, the chairperson of the Defense and  Security Committee of Parliament of Georgia called the employees of TV Company Maestro drug addicts and Russian agents.
Mamuka Ghlonti states that if Targamadze repeats these words again Maestro will sue Targamadze.

Ghlonti called international organizations, foreign embassies, NGO sector and Georgian society for not admitting violence against Maestro in his interview with newspaper “Kvela Siakhle.”
“This government  is capable of doing everything,” said Ghlonti.
TV Company Maestro is a small cable channel that covers Tbilisi and surrounding areas. The company had been struggling for gaining the license on broadcasting public and political programs since 2007. After many protest actions, the Georgian National Communications Commission gave Maestro the license.

Source: presa.ge 

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