Statement of the Human Rights Center on the Provocation of Imedi TV

In the evening of March 13th, the invented story released by the TV-Company Imedi about a new war panicked and astonished the Georgian population. The short warning was made before the reportage, where journalists stated the story was simulated, though there was no banner on the reportage itself stating that information was fake.

The Human Rights Center condemns the form of oppressing the society that goes beyond journalistic ethic norms and standards and should result into political liability for the government of Georgia.

Everybody knows that the director general of TV-Company “Imedi”, Giorgi Arveladze, was initially secretary general of the National Movement (ruling party) and then Ministry of Economy before coming into this company. Thus, the TV-Company, which is run by Giorgi Arveladze, can be viewed neither as independent TV-Company nor we can assess the so-called simulated Chronicle as only a journalistic product.

It is really alarming if the simulated plan of the Russian intervention is a real plans of the government for the near future. More precisely, the telecast of the so-called Future Chronicle stated that local self-governmental elections will be followed by mass demonstrations and unidentified people will open fire on peaceful demonstrators. We think similar statement aims to scare the population claiming that if some violations are observed during upcoming elections and people start to protest against it, there is a real threat that unidentified people will shoot the demonstrators. Unfortunately, we have already seen similar unidentified people during past demonstrations when so-called zonder brigades assaulted demonstrators only because they have different position from the government.

The future shown by Imedi telecast is rather the fear of the government than real threats. The government, apparently, is afraid to lose its power to govern.

The position of the government was clearly demonstrated by the comments of the president Saakashvili and Giorgi Arveladze who did not try to justify themselves but appreciated the fake warning of the TV-Company.

More precisely, on March 14, Saakashvili stated during his meeting with the residents of the village of Rachisubani in Bolnisi district: “I want everybody to realize that the  main inconvenience of the yesterday’s reportage was its astonishing resemblance with the reality that might happen in the future; or what the enemy of our country intends against us”…”we are fully aware that the director of the film is still sitting and writing scenarios and unfortunately, these scenarios are close to the facts which we saw yesterday.”

Giorgi Arveladze made more interesting comment on the social network Facebook. “I think that the correct assessment of those events is more important because they will lead our country to disaster. Nobody aims to worry people who are already very concerned… Simply, if you want to think of something you should do it now. If at the end of 1920 there were a television in Georgia and people had seen the imitation of what later happened in February of 1921, more Georgians would have been able to evaluate the threats in different way and have met the enemy more courageously. At least, they should not have set up the Shulaveri Committee. I think, the point is not to worry about the disaster what might happen, but we should evaluate the ongoing events correctly and what can really lead us to disaster.”

The Human Rights Center requests corresponding institutions to investigate the fact and make people responsible in making the so-called simulated Chronicle accountable for the violation of the journalistic ethic norms.