Czech journalist ‘detained’ in airport ahead of Georgian elections

Czech journalist Ray Baseley has been denied entry to Georgia ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. He was detained for over 17 hours without access to his phone or other belongings.  

At around 20:00 on Tuesday, Baseley, a freelance journalist based in Prague, posted on X that he had been barred from entering Georgia without any explanation. 

He further claimed that even the Georgian border control were unaware of why he was denied entry. As a part of his post, he shared a document stating that the refusal was due to ‘other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation’. 

Similarly opaque justifications have been cited in previous instances when foreign journalists were barred from entering Georgia. 

On Wednesday afternoon, Baseley’s partner Maria Kaplina shared that he had been able to make a call after being detained at Tbilisi airport for 17 hours without his phone. She added that representatives from the Czech Consulate were working on his case.

Baseley was commissioned by the Ukrainian media outlet the Kyiv Indepedent to cover Georgia’s parliamentary elections on 26 October.

According to the Deputy Chief Editor of Kyiv Independent, Toma Istomina, Baseley had previously worked for the media outlet as a photographer to cover a conference alongside another reporter. She told OC Media that afterwards, he had pitched and been assigned several stories focused on the Georgian elections, Russian influence in Georgia, and other related topics. 

She added that she had not heard from Baseley since his post on X on Tuesday evening. 

In an article published on Wednesday, RFE/RL cited the Czech Embassy as stating this was the first time a Czech journalist had been refused entry to Georgia. They also noted that Baseley had been to Georgia on many previous occasions.  

The same day, the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics issued a statement condemning the decision to bar Basely from entering Georgia, stating that it was the ‘duty’ of the Georgian government to provide access for foreign journalists to cover the election. 

Journalists banned for vague reasons

In recent years, a number of journalists from Russia, Armenia, and Belarus, among other states — as well as Western political advisors to Georgia’s opposition parties — have been denied entry into Georgia. However, cases of Western journalists being denied entry are far less common. 

In September, Arsen Kharatyan, the founder of the Georgian-Armenian media outlet Aliq Media was barred from entering the country and detained at Tbilisi airport for hours before being deported. 

Earlier that same month, Belarusian journalist Andrei Mialeshka was also denied entry to Georgia, even though he had been living in the country for several years. 

Both were handed documents saying they were barred due to  ‘other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation’.

After a British political consultant for the opposition United National Movement (UNM) party was denied entry to Georgia in November 2023, the director of the Social Justice Center, Tamta Mikeladze, told OC Media that the State Security Services maintained a list of people who should not be granted entry.

‘It is not legally regulated, by what standard of proof, in what cases, by whom a person is included in this list’, Mikeladze said at the time.