Georgian government shuts down state media outlet Agenda.ge

The Georgian government has shut down Agenda.ge, an English-language state media outlet founded in 2013, reportedly firing a pregnant employee in the process.

Reports of the government shutting down the outlet first emerged on 28 February.

That day, Gvantsa Gabekhadze, a political editor at Agenda.ge, claimed in a post on Facebook that she, her colleagues, and the head of the news outlet had been fired from their positions.

Gabekhadze, who said that she was currently pregnant, criticised the government’s decision to dismiss her and her colleagues through its ‘reorganisation’ efforts, which have ‘been turned into a repressive mechanism in the public sector’.

Georgian Dream refers to its dismissal of dissenting public sector employees as ‘reorganisation’. Dozens of civil servants have been dismissed after speaking out against the government’s decision to ‘temporarily halt’ Georgia’s EU accession bid until 2028.

‘This, for me personally, is not unexpected because it has long been apparent the kind of personnel needed and accumulated in the public sector, for which, as a rule, any developed state is qualified’, Gabekhadze continued, adding that keeping ‘professional and morally upright’ public sector employees was ‘no longer a priority for them, but rather a danger’.

Gabekhadze criticised the government for dismissing her during her pregnancy, which she said was contradictory to their promotion of ‘patriotism and religion’.

‘Those of you who are sitting warm today, even if you are in the private sector, or you have your own business and think that it will not affect you, you are very wrong’, she wrote.

‘The regime treats everyone as it pleases, including its most ardent supporters. The regime was the previous government, this government is also a regime, and before the dictatorship takes its final form, speak up [against it].’

As of Monday morning, Agenda.ge’s website and social media platforms all appear to have been taken down.

According to Netgazeti, Georgia’s public service law prohibits the dismissal of pregnant employees.

The government’s Strategic Communications Department has told Publika that the state did not terminate the contracts of ‘any specific employee’. The outlet additionally reported that they had yet to receive an answer as to how many employees were laid off as part of the ‘reorganisation’ process.

Agenda.ge was founded in 2013 serving as one of the few English-language media outlets at the time. It primarily published news about the government and its projects.

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