Non-governmental Organizations Protest Violence on Juveniles

Non-governmental and public organizations protest the decision, made by the Georgian Parliament in 2006. According to the decision, the Article on “Protecting the Juveniles from Negative Influence” was completely removed from in the law. Under that article, TV Companies could not openly show topics on sex or violence.

As representatives of the legislative body state, those restrictions on above-mentioned topics are envisaged within the Ethic Code on Broadcasters. However, that particular Code could not have been adopted for more than three years.

Regarding the problem, non-governmental organization “Union of Parents” has petitioned to the Parliament and National Union of Communications several times. Giorgi Kifiani, the head of the organization said in his conversation with the Human Rights Center that “Code should be adopted by the Communication Commission; however, the latter ignores public interests.  It seems they do not care about public interest at all. Not only our organization but many other organizations have introduced their remarks on the issue. However, the commission does not intend to meet us or any other organizations to discuss the problem.”

The commission is going to discuss the code on May 18. As Kifiani said, today, NGOs are planning to hold protest demonstration and they hope they would be able to attend the commission meeting. Representatives of the NGOs are sure the adoption of the code will be postponed now too, as it previously used to happen.

Eka Gulua