Sagarejo District Councilor Blamed for Insulting Journalist

The editorial board of the Kakheti regional newspaper ‘Progress’ accuses the Sagarejo district’s Temporary Governor, Garsevan Bukhnikashvili, for insulting one of the newspaper’s correspondents. The board demands that the Temporary Governor makes a public apology to journalist Mishiko Lazashvili.

As Lazashvili pointed out in conversation with us, the Temporary Governor dismissed him from the Sagarejo Regional Administrative Board meeting and insulted him. “I regularly attend the meetings,” says Mishiko Lazashvili, “On Monday, after entering the hall I was ordered to leave the place by Bukhnikashvili. Though I demanded he gave a reason, the only reply from him was the following – ‘It is my wish’. I reminded him that he was preventing me from obtaining public information and said that some other journalists were attending the meeting as well. Thus if the meeting were a closed one, they also should leave the hall. Then the Temporary Governor shouted at me to leave the hall, jumped up and rushed towards me. So I decided to leave the hall to avoid provocation but he followed me using foul language. He called me ‘scum’ loudly several times.” The journalist puts this down to his having published critical letters about Temporary Governor Bukhnikashvili in the newspaper.

Leila Murakashvili, editor for the newspaper ‘Progress’, does not exclude that the annoyed Temporary Governor might use other methods against the journalist. “In case of any kind of harassment or provocation against Mishiko Lazashvili, the charge would be brought against Gari Bukhnikashvili,” states Leila Murakashvili.

Garsevan Bukhnikashvili himself denies the accusation and calls the journalist’s accusation a provocation.

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti