Freedom of the Press

Unshackling of mass media from state control is considered one of the most important achievements of the recent years of Georgian authorities' activities. However, the facts of bribery, browbeating and blackmail of mass media not on the part of state authorities but representatives of various groups and clans being in power were occurring again last year. Consequently, many "independent" newspapers already express the standpoints and interests of those various groups. Apart from this there was an attempt to blackmail and browbeat (under the pretext of tax payment check up) one of the most popular channel of Georgia Rustavi-2 on the part of the Ministry of State Security in October 2001 which was resulted in anti-governmental marches of people demanding the protection of the freedom of expression.

Due to the above anti-governmental marches, the Chairman of the Parliament and the entire Board of Government has resigned. However, 80% of previous ministers were approved by the Parliament in the composition of a new Board of Government approximately in a month, thus confirming its unwillingness to meet requirements of the people. Accordingly, an idea of holing pre-term presidential and parliamentary elections is very popular in the community.

Overall, it should be mentioned that the press fails to establish general feeling given the circulation of each newspaper does not exceed some thousand copies. Electronic media is a greater and more an effective means to impact the general feeling so political forces try to extend their influence by virtue of various TV channels.