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Georgians Are the Most Free Journalists

October 18, 2007

The International NGO Reporters Without Borders issued her sixth annual report about the conditions of Free Press in several countries. Surprisingly, Georgia took the 66th place among 169 countries, in comparison to previous years Georgia has improved her position with 23 places.

Despite this progression, the free press in Georgia is actually under pressure from the government, the recent events in our country show this clearly. Journalists do not want to lose their professional freedom and therefore they are leaving their jobs. Representatives of the government kindled a disagreement between journalists of leading TV companies. Newspapers are shutting down and circulation of news is becoming more difficult.

It is worth mentioning that before January 1, 2007 media did not pay any Value Added Tax (VAT) and property taxes. The benefits gained from advertisements and the bank accounts of the newspaper were not subject to tax collection. But from the January 1, 2007 all these privileges were abolished. The existence of many newspapers was at serious risk due to the amendments of the Tax Code.

The Human Rights Centre (HRIDC) tried to gather the views of well-known journalists on Georgia's improved position in the Free Press List:

Inga Grigolia, a TV journalist: “Nowadays, the press is really free in Georgia. Of course the press will be free, because our President publicly announces that he is not reading the newspapers and what does his announcement mean? You can write and read whatever you want, it does not have any importance for the government. When the government openly and ironically blames journalists of a television company for paying money to a farmer from Kakheti to close down his vineyard I don’t have any comments about this. As a rule, the government refuses to appear on debates, but they are participating in discussions on television which are aired by television companies the government controls. Today I am free and I say loudly whatever I wish. But it would be better if the government would sometimes read the newspapers and hear the different views about their activities.”

Lasha Tugushi, the editor of newspaper “Rezonance”: “It is perfect that we are improving our position in the rating of international organizations. It is obvious though that we have serious problems in Georgia and in my opinion we have to solve them in due time. Unfortunately, the government interferes quite often in the activities of television companies. They try to force television companies to follow their instructions and transform them into a propaganda tool. The government often accuses journalists of bribing people and paying money to prepare scandalous reports etc. In my opinion the local government of Tbilisi has made a mistake when they decreased the number of news-stands on the main streets, in particular from Freedom Square to Vake Park. I cannot understand why they did so. Reporters Without Borders is a quite prominent international organization. I hope they have good reasons for putting Georgia in 66th position, but I do not know what criterion they used during the selection process.”

Rusudan Gigashvili, former editor of newspaper “New Version” (this paper is out of business):
“In the last year too many newspapers have gone out of business. Why do you think we shut down our newspaper “New Version”? We were forced to make that decision and we had objective reasons for it. The situation regarding the freedom of press in our region is difficult and complicated. The journalists are under inhuman pressure and they are sometimes the victim of physical abuse. Everyday it was difficult to receive information, so I cannot understand how we managed.”

Experts declare that the most free country with regards to the freedom of press is Iceland. Norway, Estonia, Slovenia, Belgium, Finland. Sweden, Ireland and Portugal follow. Eritrea holds the last position, which replaced North Korea.

The authors of the report put Russia in the 144th place, because of Anna Politkovskaia’s brutal killing and similar cases which have not yet been investigated.

A very interesting paradox: The President of Georgia publicly stated that he does not read newspapers, which can be understood to mean that he does not care what the journalists write or read. Therefore, we can conclude that Reporters Without Borders have made a mistake, Georgia should be in 1st place instead of 66th as our “Boss” does not read our “creations”. Consequently, we are the most free journalists in the world.

Nino Tarkhnishvili
from Tbilisi

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