Media organisations in solidarity with journalists and media in Georgia

Faced with vio­lence, threats, deten­tions, equip­ment destruc­tion and seizure, jour­nal­ists in Geor­gia are enter­ing what is sup­posed to be a fes­tive peri­od with uncer­tain­ty and fear for their safe­ty. Sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port is need­ed now more than ever.

Pho­to: Tbel Abuseridze/ Unsplash

The under­signed press free­dom, free­dom of expres­sion, media, and jour­nal­ists organ­i­sa­tions express sol­i­dar­i­ty towards jour­nal­ists and media in Geor­gia.

The MFRR part­ners con­demn con­tin­u­ous attacks and pres­sure on media work­ers and repeat the call for a strong reac­tion by EU offi­cials and insti­tu­tions to address this vio­lence. The protests against the Geor­gian Dream’s deci­sion to pause EU mem­ber­ship nego­ti­a­tions start­ed on Novem­ber 28, 2024, and were fol­lowed by tar­get­ed, and in many cas­es bru­tal attacks on jour­nal­ists.

A jour­nal­ist, Alek­san­dre Keshe­lashvil of Tbil­isi-based inde­pen­dent media orga­ni­za­tion Publika.gei, recount­ed his attack on the very first day of the protests. Keshe­lashvili was record­ing protests when a masked group of police offi­cers ran into them. Alek­san­dre tried to move to a safe place when a police offi­cer grabbed him from behind, pulling him.

“I was shout­ing, ‘I’m a jour­nal­ist!’… he recount­ed, as well as that he was wear­ing a press hel­met and press vest. Nonethe­less, the police con­fis­cat­ed his equip­ment, push­ing him to the floor and beat­ing him all over his head. They pro­ceed­ed to drag him to the police cor­don where they hand­cuffed him, plac­ing him into the van. At the police sta­tion, he was informed that he was arrest­ed but giv­en no rea­son why. Even­tu­al­ly, he was tak­en to the doc­tor who found he had a bro­ken nose and con­cus­sion.

This is just one of the exam­ples of bru­tal attacks against the media. Since Novem­ber 28, the MFRR plat­form reg­is­tered that at least 80 jour­nal­ists* have been sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal assault, ver­bal abuse, or inter­fer­ence as police force­ful­ly ter­mi­nat­ed the protests. As local media organ­i­sa­tions demon­strate, jour­nal­ists who work for inde­pen­dent and gov­ern­ment-crit­i­cal media out­lets are main­ly affect­ed by such attacks, with the major­i­ty being based in Tbil­isi.

Guram Roga­va of For­mu­la TV was bru­tal­ly assault­ed by riot police, as shown in footage from Radio Tavi­su­ple­ba and For­mu­la TV, which doc­u­ment­ed the riot police offi­cer strik­ing him. He sus­tained seri­ous injuries and was hos­pi­talised. Accord­ing to reports, Roga­va has suf­fered facial bone frac­tures and a bro­ken cer­vi­cal ver­te­bra as a result of the vio­lence at the protest.

The attacks came also from what looks like vig­i­lante groups. One of the inci­dents that went viral for its bru­tal­i­ty involved a female jour­nal­ist, Maka Chikhladze and cam­era oper­a­tor Gior­gi Shet­sir­uli  from TV Pire­li.  A group of masked attack­ers dressed in black first used what appeared to be pep­per spray before esca­lat­ing the vio­lence. Chikhladze was grabbed and thrown to the ground, with one assailant shout­ing insults. Cam­era oper­a­tor Gior­gi Shet­sir­uli was kicked in the head while try­ing to pro­tect him­self. 

This unprece­dent­ed attack on the media in Geor­gia occurs in an envi­ron­ment of rapid decline in press free­dom and a wider ero­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms. In recent months, the country’s media land­scape has grown more hos­tile and per­ilous, with legal and insti­tu­tion­al mea­sures being weaponised to harass and silence crit­i­cal voic­es. At the same time, gov­ern­ment smear cam­paigns to dis­cred­it inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ism have con­tin­ued unabat­ed. 

The over­whelm­ing signs of state cap­ture in Geor­gia are extreme­ly wor­ry­ing, as the Geor­gian Dream exerts con­trol over the state’s major insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the judi­cia­ry. Con­se­quent­ly, impuni­ty for crimes against jour­nal­ists remains wide­spread, with inves­ti­ga­tions often being insuf­fi­cient and per­pe­tra­tors rarely held account­able, par­tic­u­lar­ly those from the police.

Fur­ther­more, in these times, it is cru­cial for pub­lic ser­vice media to make efforts to bring bal­ance and pro­vide impar­tial report­ing. Con­cerns about the Geor­gian Dream’s polit­i­cal influ­ence on the Geor­gian Pub­lic Broad­cast­er, are extreme­ly wor­ry­ing. The pub­lic broad­cast­er should play a cru­cial role in tru­ly serv­ing pub­lic inter­ests and resist­ing polit­i­cal pres­sure.

We reit­er­ate our call to the EU insti­tu­tions and call on oth­er Geor­gian gov­ern­ment strate­gic part­ners, indi­vid­ual states and all oth­er inter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers to impose sanc­tions on the Geor­gian Dream, its lead­ers, and all oth­er insti­tu­tions and actors involved in com­mit­ting these grave vio­la­tions of human rights and ero­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples.

Final­ly, media free­dom groups and MFRR part­ners draw strength from the brav­ery and resilience of Georgia’s inde­pen­dent media who con­tin­ue to report despite the dire con­di­tions in the coun­try. Their work is now more cru­cial than ever, and their courage is an inspi­ra­tion and a reminder of why media free­doms mat­ter. We stand by the side of all Geor­gian jour­nal­ists and media work­ers and express our unwa­ver­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty.

*At the time of writ­ing the state­ment MFRR reg­is­tered attacks against 81 jour­nal­ists. The num­ber may change depend­ing on the devel­op­ments.

This state­ment was coor­di­nat­ed by the Media Free­dom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mech­a­nism which tracks, mon­i­tors and responds to vio­la­tions of press and media free­dom in EU Mem­ber States, Can­di­date Coun­tries and Ukraine.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Euro­pean Cen­tre for Press and Media Free­doms (ECPMF)

Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute (IPI)

The Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ)

OBC Transeu­ropa (OBCT)

Free Press Unlim­it­ed (FPU)

BH Jour­nal­ists Asso­ci­a­tion — BHJA, Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina 

Fly­ing Broom Women’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Research Asso­ci­a­tion, Türkiye

Velvele — Queer Media Col­lec­tive (Turkey & Cat­alo­nia) 

Media and Law Stud­ies Asso­ci­a­tion (MLSA) , Turkey 

Voys Media, Turkey

Muzir.org

Bur­sa Haber Ajan­sı

Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (GC), Türkiye

Asso­ci­a­tion of Euro­pean Jour­nal­ists AEJ

Media and Migra­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (MMA), Turkey

Basın Kulübü Derneği (PCA) Turkey

Fayn, Turkey

Sol­fa­sol, Turkey

Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists of Alba­nia 

Hun­gar­i­an Press Union 

Flem­ish Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (VVJ), Bel­gium

Asso­ci­a­tion des jour­nal­istes pro­fes­sion­nels (AJP), (Bel­gium)

Roman­ian Trade Union of Jour­nal­ists Medi­aSind

Lithuan­ian Jour­nal­ists Union

Soci­ety of Jour­nal­ists, War­saw

Eston­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Inde­pen­dent Trade Union of Jour­nal­ists and Media Work­ers (NMace­do­nia)

Swedish Union of Jour­nal­ists, Swe­den

Inde­pen­dent Jour­nal­ists’ Asso­ci­a­tion of Ser­bia (Ser­bia)

The Nor­we­gian Union of Jour­nal­ists 

Slovene Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Trade Union of Croa­t­ian Jour­nal­ists

The Dan­ish Union of Jour­nal­ists

Jour­nal­ists’ and Media Work­ers’ Union (Rus­sia)

Ital­ian Nation­al Press Fed­er­a­tion (FNSI)

Free Press for East­ern Europe (FPEE)

Civ­il Rights Defend­ers

Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF)

mrc — Medi­an Research Cen­tre (MRC)

The Fix

Union for Jour­nal­ists in Fin­land

Açık Radyo, Türkiye

EVN Report, Arme­nia

Pro­gres­sive Con­tem­po­rary Jour­nal­ists’ Asso­ci­a­tion (PJA) / Çağ­daş Gazete­cil­er Derneği (ÇGD), Türkiye

The Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Hun­gar­i­an Jour­nal­ists (MÚOSZ)

Arti­co­lo 21

Jour­nal­ists Union of Turkey (TGS)

Ice­landic Union of Jour­nal­ists

Croa­t­ian Jour­nal­ists Asso­ci­a­tion (CJA)

Hetq, Arme­nia

SNJ-CGT, France

dju in ver.di, Ger­many

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