While corruption and crime continued to overrun Georgia in 2002, some officials blamed the country’s woes on excessive press freedom, even accusing the media of contributing to the February suicide of Security Council chief Nugzar Sadzhaya. Public figures readily chastised the press for exposing inadequacies in President Eduard Shevardnadze’s government. Shevardnadze himself publicly lamented past attacks on journalists, but the perpetrators of these crimes, which included violent assaults and assassinations, were not brought to justice.

In February, and again in May, gunshots were fired at the offices of the independent television station Rustavi-2, based in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. No one was injured. Rustavi-2 staff linked the incidents to the station’s reporting on corruption and crime, though police investigations have produced no results.

In July, unidentified individuals attacked the offices of the Liberty Institute, a local nongovernmental organization that defends press freedom and human rights, destroying property and seriously injuring staff, including a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent. Authorities detained an extremist associated with an ultra–Christian Orthodox group in connection to the attack, but he was later released.

The inquiry into the 2001 murder of Georgy Sanaya, a popular anchor for Rustavi-2, progressed slowly. Throughout 2002, state officials, including President Shevardnadze, declared the investigation concluded, but they have released little information about the crime. Law enforcement authorities insist that the murder was not politically motivated and that Grigol Khurtsilava, a former police officer who was arrested in December 2001, committed the crime. However, the journalist’s family and colleagues believe that he was killed for his work.

Journalists continue to have limited access to Georgia’s lawless Pankisi Gorge, a haven for refugees and rebels from the neighboring Russian region of Chechnya who sometimes conduct incursions across the porous border. The gorge remained a point of friction between the two neighbors; Georgia accused Russia of violating its borders, while Russia accused Georgia of harboring terrorists.

Following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States, Georgian authorities sometimes justified harassment of the press as part of an effort to combat terrorism. In late March, officials arrested Islam Saidayev, editor of the newspaper Chechenskaya Pravda, on suspicion of having links to neighboring Chechen and international terrorists. Saidayev’s lawyer maintained that his client’s contacts were professional. On June 25, a court authorized the journalist’s release.

Media-related legislative efforts also made the news in Georgia during 2002. On May 20, the Civil Society Representatives of Georgia, a group of 18 representatives from local civic organizations, released a statement condemning the Justice Ministry’s draft amendments to the Criminal Code, which, among other measures, impose longer jail sentences for defaming government officials. The statement also accused the government of stalling public television reform. Meanwhile, the government announced plans in December to prepare a draft law on television and radio broadcasting, which would create public television, a requirement of the Council of Europe, a pan-European intergovernmental organization to which Georgia belongs.