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Will Pre-Election Censor Work Overtime in Blocking Websites?

April 17, 2008
Eka Kevanishvili, Tbilisi

“A now close topic for discussion concerns the infamous conversation between Vano Merabishvili, Georgian Minster of Internal Affairs and his counterpart, the Azerbaijan Minister of Internal Affairs. Somehow all links to this discussion have been deleted from the Internet!!”  It would seem that something is wrong, “Then I guessed that something was wrong, as a quotation from the post of one of former user of the Tbilisi Forum that wrote about the terrible events of November 7, 2007. 

The conversation of the Ministers was put out on the Internet for a wider audience to see how democracy works in this part of the world. However, it immediately vanished from various websites. Merabishvili, the Georgian Minister of Internal Affairs, was asking his Azerbaijan colleague for some extra truncheons and tear-gas to raid the peaceful demonstration of 7 November in order to show who actually was controlling the situation. 


It is obvious that before elections government will try to clamp down as much as possible on Internet forums, which has taken a marked increase because of the urgency of the situation, and this may be the last stand for free and fair elections. One month is yet to go before the much awaited parliamentary elections of the 21st of May. In the meantime it is countdown and will be lots of recriminations, polemics, deal-making, and down and dirty name calling. The supporters of the opposition political parties will become even more active with what they do best. However, their sights will be on controlling one of the few media sources that have not yet succumbed to the strong arm attics of the reform government and the enforcers at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is thought that public postings will become even more impressive as events unfold.  

There are those who have websites and say that they have never censored by the Georgian government. However, forum administrators are not open to freely discuss this issue. Part of the problem is the focus of the various websites.  It is clear that pro government websites will continue to be free and not subject to any control.  However, it is apparently clear that opposition ideas will be immediately blocked on various forums.       

Ucha Nanuashvili, the executive director of the Human Rights Center, remembered how www.humanrights.ge twice became the subject of mass attack, and as a result of the concerted attacks the data base was completely deleted:

Coincidence or not, “a substantial degree of doubt is raised as why only the English part of the site was the subject of the concerted attack.” Nonetheless, some IT professional web masters claim that it could have just been an accident. It is clear that someone had tried to do this over a long period of time and they were finally successful. Restoring the integrity of the website took a long time and took some serious work. It is clear looking back in retrospect that the timing just happened to coincide with an especially politically active periods.”
 
“As for Forum.ge they deleted all information about the company that was put on line by us. All new information posted on the forum would immediately disappear. The problem lasted for several days and in total, about ten topics were opened for discussion about the company, but all of them were soon canceled. The same happened on 7 November and in the following days. Critical topics were removed. The same happened on myvideo.ge and other websites.

I could see how information disappeared just 5 minutes after it was posted. Several sites were blocked, imedinews.ge and imedi.ge for example. tobe.myweb.ge as well and the problem still continues, which shows that covert and direct suppression is most evident. All the websites that had posted theconversation between the notorious Vano Merabishvili and his also infamous counterpart in the Azerbaijan Minister of Internal Affairs were shutdown. All what transpired was easily observed.”

The terrible and brutal events that transpired on November 7 2007 in Tbilisi were discussed on the Tbilisi Forum in detail. One of the moderators even resigned.  It goes without saying the disappointment 16-17 year old young men who were raised thinking that the future belonged to freedom and democracy – and how they felt when their freedom of expression was blocked by a government that has a double standard. It is expected that the same will happen with the next round of elections for members of the parliament.  Moreover, forum.ge has many clients. In November of the last year, during emergency rule, when all TV Stations were taken off the air and people were use the Internet to get access to real information - as they did not trust what was being broadcasted by Georgian Public TV, as the official mouthpiece of the government.   Websites were the last place where they could even hope to get information that was close to the truth and freely express their opinions.     

“I posted in political division on the forum and I was very different for my opposition ideas. People demanded to hear critical opinion. Bitter statements were also made; however the situation changed a little after November of 2007. Before that I had never felt censorship. It started after Vano Merabishvili’s  nasty phone conversation and how it just vanished from the forum.
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The administrator of the forum told moderators to delete the closed topics that can be viewed only by moderators; he asked us not to inquire as to why. We had just to remove all similar links and topics and we did.”

The former moderator of the forum.ge says that forum was often visited by the officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was not difficult to find out it by their IP addresses. The moderator stated that as usually these people would work to discredit the opposition. “I remarked to one of them, how they were actually discrediting his own uniform; he replied I had to take care of my own uniform. The person who was posting from the Ministry of Internal Affairs should actually ashamed of wearing uniform and what he has been doing.  They only pretend to fight against criminal mentality but in fact they are ashamed of their own profession and their jobs.  In the past, foreign delegations were followed by “KGB” people and the situation on the forum was practically the same.  Some question appears on the forum but the administrator suggests you to delete the links.”

From the first sight somebody might think this entire situation unimportant. For example, when any user goes to the designated site to discuss a previous argument face-to-face with another user, it is only too clear that a fleet of black jeeps is seen and one just happens to belong to a young and famous politician stands in opposition to what is being posted.

“Everybody has information about similar appointments and the resulting problems because of  the forum and the crackdown.  Once, our user supporting opposition opinion had an appointment and he arrived on the place with a leg of chair. His opponent came on the place in large black jeeps from where our “law enforcers’ rushed out dressed in civilian clothes. The oppositionist managed to escape but we know who his opponent was – a famous MP was sitting in the jeep,” said our respondent.

It is also known that this fact had bad influence on the forum. The political topic was temporarily closed down. Temur Khaindrava, the Forum Administrator made similar comments regarding the delay with journalists:

“I do not think any kind discrimination has occurred.” He even claimed that the administration did not interfere in the activities of moderators.

Journalist Gia Iakobashvili, who currently represents www.presa.ge , said that after November 7 their website was the only one that was able to post information without any delay. He also added that although the government tried to censor their site too. However, nobody openly expressed their will. “They know my character,” said Iakobashvili. That is right, if somebody gives him directions, Dito Gelovani (Iakobashvili’s penname) we will write some even more pointed and sharp letters about the government on the forum. 

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