Committee to Protect Journalists
Georgia
• TV news politicized due to government manipulation.
• Opposition-aligned broadcaster obstructed.
7: Percent of Internet penetration nationwide.
While no journalists were killed or imprisoned in Georgia in 2009, press freedom in this small South Caucasus nation stagnated due to persistent state manipulation of news media, particularly television broadcasting. In a speech before the U.N. General Assembly in September, President Mikhail Saakashvili boasted of Georgia’s media pluralism, stating that the country has “27 TV stations.” He failed to mention that most stations have little reach and, notably, that his government and its allies have long sought to control television news content, most recently through aggressive efforts to obstruct the cable affiliates of a station aligned with a leading opponent.
Amid ongoing attacks on journalists, CPJ advocacy in Europe
and
New York, September
18, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Georgian authorities to
drop criminal charges against the Tbilisi bureau chief for the Russian news
agency RIA Novosti and allow him to work without fear of harassment. According
to RIA Novosti, Besik Pipia is facing up to three years in prison if convicted
on a criminal charge of document forgery.
Mikhail Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin used strikingly similar tactics to create uncritical television media. The one-sided, one-dimensional coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia was the product of their efforts
By Nina Ognianova
Three journalists were killed and at least 10 were wounded during a brief but bloody conflict in the disputed region of South Ossetia that pitted Georgian troops against local and Russian forces. South Ossetian separatists strengthened their position after the conflict--gaining full recognition from Moscow and the active support of Russian troops--although Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili reaped at least a short-term spike in popularity.
Reports
| Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Mexico, Multimedia, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia
CPJ’s Joel Simon, Robert Mahoney, and Nina Ognianova pay tribute to journalists who died in 2008. The toll was highest in Iraq, but conflicts in South Asia and the Caucasus were deadly as well. Impunity in journalist murders in Russia, Philippines, and Mexico were top issues.
Reports
| Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Croatia, Georgia, India, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Thailand
New York, September 9, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s release of Telewizja Polska (TVP) crew members who were detained outside the Georgian village of Karaleti by South Ossetian militia members, and taken into custody in the regional capital, Tskhinvali on Monday.
Reporter Dariusz Bohatkiewicz told CPJ that authorities in Tskhinvali transferred him and his colleagues—cameraman Marcin Wesołowski and driver Levan Guliashvili—to Russian peacekeepers who turned them over to Georgian authorities and Polish diplomats. TVP crew’s equipment and car were returned undamaged.
New York, September 8, 2008—South Ossetian and Russian authorities should immediately release three members of a Polish television crew detained today near the village of Karaleti in the buffer zone between South Ossetia and Georgia, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Authorities confiscated equipment and cell phones from the Telewizja Polska (TVP) crew and were holding the three members incommunicado in the regional capital, Tskhinvali, according to CPJ sources.
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