26 May Victim Journalists Request Publicizing of MIA Information

Journalists and organizations, victims of May 26 events lodged a lawsuit against the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Tbilisi City Court requesting publicizing of the Decree of the Interior Minister on dismissing four officers.  Lawyers Natia Kapanadze and Tamar Kordzaia are defending the interests of journalists and organizations.

The claimant party (Netgazeti journalists Konstantin Stalinsky and Tamaz Kupreishvili, Guria News journalist Nato Gogelia, Batumelebi Newspaper, Chokhatauri Matsne, Akhali Ambebi and Radio Center Plus journalists) claim that classifying the given information is illegal.

As the lawyer of the claimant party Natia Kapanadze told media.ge, according to the law the decision on classifying public information and prolonging the term of secrecy must be registered in the Public Registry database and “a claimant has a right to request information about who made an order on classifying specific information.”

The claimants appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia on November 1 2011 and requested release of the July 14 2011 Decree of the Interior Minister on dismissal of four officers, impairing one officer, strict reprimand to three officers and reprimand to eight officers.  The claimants were also interested to know if the MIA was conducting investigation of the misconduct by the Ministry officers during the dispersal of the May 26 2011 protest rally.

Ministry of Internal Affairs notified that the given information was State secret; as for journalists’ request to provide them with the information about main requisites of the State secret the MIA replied that “the current legislation does not oblige the Ministry to reveal information about the secret period and the official who granted the Top Secret status to the information.” 

media.ge