The announcement of the suspension of Georgia’s EU integration process until 2028 by the Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and accusations of fraud in the last elections have caused immense anger among the population. Thousands of Georgians have been continually demonstrating in Tbilisi night after night since November 28. Georgian police have used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, while journalists covering these protests say they have been deliberately targeted by security forces.

“They are using excessive force with peaceful demonstrators who don’t do anything wrong,” said Lia Chakhunashvili, the executive director of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. “The police are attacking them and beating them, and when journalists try to record this, the police attack them [as well]. They don’t want journalists to document crimes that they are committing, and they also hate them.”

Multiple videos, photos, and testimonies of journalists being attacked have been multiplying in recent days. “The police are much more brutal than they used to be before. Journalists are deliberately targeted, there is no single doubt. They cannot say it’s accidental, they clearly see these people holding cameras and microphones with their logo. It looks like police are taking some revenge on journalists,” explained Chakhunashvili.

Several journalists covering these large anti-government protests say they were beaten and sometimes required hospitalisation. “I was attacked by a policeman, even though I wasn’t injured badly, I was kicked in my legs several times,” said George Gogua, journalist and co-founder of the Georgian independent media Project 64. “One of my colleagues was injured with a broken nose.”

Pretty much every night one journalist is at least injured. It became one of the standards during this period
George Gogua, journalist and co-founder of the Georgian independent media Project 64

“Even if we have self-defence equipment, like respiratory masks and helmets, you cannot really do anything”.

A more hostile environment

Journalism has become a more and more dangerous occupation in Georgia. The country is now ranking 103rd out of 180 countries in the RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index. Georgia fell 26 places, the biggest fall registered by any country in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to RSF.

“What’s happening now is worse than the expectation,” said Diana Petriashvili from the Free Press for Eastern Europe (FPEE). “I covered the election of this current ruling party in 2013 when it came into power, and back then some journalists already suspected we might be dealing with Russian influence. I can’t believe what is happening now.”

In 2021, for example, during the Pride march in Tbilisi, 53 journalists were beaten by far-right groups, one of them died. Many say they have seen a deterioration in the situation since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The situation of press freedom and independent media was deteriorating from year to year, but it happened very rapidly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Georgia did not support Ukraine properly, and things developed very fast. Journalists have become enemies,” said Lia Chakhunashvili.

More recently, Georgia saw major protests a few months ago when the controversial law on ‘Transparency of Foreign Influence’ was passed, dubbed a “Russian law” by its critics. Moscow has used similar legislation to crack down on independent news media, nonprofits, and activists critical of the Kremlin. Civil society organisations and media outlets, whose budgets come from other countries for more than 20% of their funds, will be declared “foreign agents” under this law.

This situation directly affects independent media. A minority but a growing one, these online media reach a young and educated audience, where television remains dominant. “Independent media outlets are more targeted. We have become a target of increasing violence. Most of the TV stations are politicised, from the government or by the opposition. This law was one of the ways to discredit independent media,” said George Gogua from the independent media Project 64.

“For now it didn’t impact us directly but more indirectly. Our media outlet spent time during the pre-election period to find legal ways to avoid registering in this foreign agency. It takes us a lot of time and energy, and on the other hand, the things we should have focused on during the election period went into a lot of background,” added Gogua.

An uncertain future

Lia Chakhunashvili keeps a list of all attacks on journalists since these new demonstrations, which she sends to different ambassadors and international organisations, hoping that they will put pressure on the government to investigate these cases. “We are bringing all these cases to the Georgian prosecutor’s office and to the special investigative services. They do call journalists and ask them and record all this. They initiated an investigation, but there was nothing afterward. Yet, many of these incidents are signs of crimes that should be prosecuted under the criminal codes of Georgia to obstruct journalists from doing their work.”

Some attacks during the recent protests were reported to the Council of Europe Platform for the Protection of Journalism, noting that the “vast majority of those injured were journalists from independent and government-critical media outlets based in Tbilisi.” Many international press and journalist organisations condemned the police violence and brutality towards journalists while urging the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia to stop the violence and to identify and prosecute the perpetrators.

For George Gogua, the future of journalism will depend heavily on what happens next. “It would depend on how this political situation will end. If these protests don’t have any result, then we will have direct attacks on the media and NGOs with this law (law on ‘Transparency of Foreign Influence’).”

Diana Petriashvili is also worried that the current situation in Georgia will spread to surrounding countries. “It’s very easy to copy this law in other countries, it’s a huge risk to have legislation like that. We already see that this law has been copied by different countries in the eastern European region, but not only that, also inside the European Union there are countries that try to implement something like this. It’s a very recognisable Russian signature.”

Source of the cover photo: Jelger Groeneveld, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Journalists are deliberately targeted” - press freedom under threat more than ever in Georgia

Romain Chauvet

Journalists in Georgia are facing more and more physical, verbal, legal, and financial attacks. The pressure has increased even more since the recent demonstrations

Author

Romain Chauvet

‌

‌‌‌

‌‌‌