Charter of Ethics Calls Upon Journalists to Secure Anonymity of Participants of Family Tragedy

The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics calls upon media outlets to adjust the information regarding the murder that took place on June 10, so that it is impossible to identify the participants of the tragedy and search them up in the internet.  Ad interim the Charter makes similar address to the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the request to secure anonymity of both the culprit and victim.

On June 10 the Ministry of Internal Affairs spread the information that a man had killed his wife and child in Gidomi village, close to Tbilisi. In the information published on the Ministry’s website the detainee is mentioned under initials, but the victim is, nonetheless, named therein.

The Charter stresses in its address that in the information circulated by several information agencies contains the names of both the culprit and victim, as well as their place of residence, thus making it possible to identify the family members( including children). 

The Charter calls upon the representatives of media to carefully work with that kind information, and give up attempts to identify the victim with reference to the matter, as “their names and place of residence is of no avail in terms of adding new details to the existent information”.

“Media must have a clear understanding that by circulating the information regarding such grave incident, they may involuntary endanger the kids,”- stressed the journalistic organization, which thanks media outlets for having realized the risks and featured the information without identifying the culprit.”

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