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RSF: Georgian police target reporters covering ongoing protests

Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has stated that ‘Georgian police have been targeting reporters covering the protests that erupted on 28 November’.

Head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Desk Jeanne Cavelier highlighted that ‘Georgian Dream is a nightmare for democracy and the media outlets exposing the party’s authoritarian actions’.

‘The total impunity of law enforcement, together with new laws, severely threaten the right to reliable information. Beyond the question of EU accession, these events represent a critical fight for Georgia’s independence in the face of Russian influence’, she said.

RSF urgently called on the EU to take ‘strong action and launch an international investigation into the violence committed against journalists to bring the perpetrators to justice’.

In their official statement RSF gave examples of journalists being injured during ongoing protests by law enforcement officers, including the co-founder and co-director of OC Media Mariam Nikuradze, who ‘was deliberately targeted by a water cannon, which injured her leg and damaged her equipment’.

‘On 1 and 2 December, while Mariam Nikuradze was filming, an officer shoved her against a wall, breaking her second camera. Summoned by police, she was questioned on 10 December in an investigation accusing her of “organising group violence” ’, the statement noted.

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