A number of politically destabilizing events rocked Georgia during the
year. In February, President Eduard Shevardnadze narrowly escaped injury
in an assassination attempt that left two of his bodyguards dead. A few weeks
later, four members of a United Nations team sent to observe the peace agreement
in the separatist region of Abkhazia were abducted. In May, hostilities,
which had essentially ended since the 1993 cease-fire, were renewed in Abkhazia's
Gali region. In October, supporters of Georgia's late President Zviad
Gamsakhurdia attempted to oust Shevardnadze. As the government struggled
to maintain political control and rein in the opposition, official harassment
of journalists increased.
At least one journalist lost his life reporting on the fighting in Abkhazia,
which flared again in May. Georgy Chanya, a reporter for the independent
Tbilisi daily Rezonants, was killed on May 27 while covering
the conflict between Abkhaz rebels and Georgian guerrillas near Gali. Chanya's
death raises to four the number of journalists CPJ has documented as killed
in the line of duty in Abkhazia since 1992, when fighting first broke out.
In June, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security
of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in exile filed civil libel suits against
the weekly independent newspaper Kavkasioni and against Sozar
Subeliani, an editor from the newspaper. A decision in favor of the plaintiffs
could set a dangerous precedent, especially since other independent newspapers,
such as Rezonants, are also facing libel suits filed by government
officials.
Independent journalists were targets of violent attacks. In September, armed
assailants beat Lasha Nadareishvili and David Okropiridze, editor in chief
and a reporter, respectively, for the independent
weekly Asaval-Dasavali.
In an incident of harassment involving the military, Ministry of Defense
officials called Amiran Meskheli, a correspondent for the
newspaper Orioni, for military service on June 11 following the
publication in May of an article that included Meskheli's interview with
several soldiers. On August 20, a court ordered his temporary release, ruling
that Meskheli had been "called up in violation of the law."
Journalists continued to face other obstacles to their work, such as the
denial of access to public information by authorities. And local governments
frequently pressured independent newspapers through overzealous tax inspections
and other abuses of regulatory procedures. |
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