The Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris-based press freedom watchdog, issued a statement calling on the Georgian authorities to conduct transparent investigations into the cases of attacks against journalists during the anti-Foreign Agents Law protests, and urged the Georgian government to repel the law.
“Street protests in Georgia against a “foreign agents” law based on Russian legislation is eliciting more and more violence from the police, including against reporters,” the watchdog said, adding that “more than 15 journalists have been subjected to violence or intimidation” since this law was reintroduced on April 3. According to the same statement, this law is designed to silence the independent media.
“The situation in Georgia is extremely worrying. The government and Georgian Dream party are pushing ahead, the police violence is intensifying and journalists are becoming scapegoats. We call for an end to the violence, for investigations into abuses against journalists to be carried out in a transparent and independent manner, and for the withdrawal of the ‘foreign agents’ law,” Jeanne Cavelier, Head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, noted.
In the statement, the RSF named the journalists who became victims of violence an also recalled the 2021 pogroms, saying “no fewer than 53 journalists were beaten with complete impunity by counter-demonstrators during a Gay Pride march in Tbilisi in July 2021. One of them died of his injuries a few days later.”
The watchdog also noted that “Georgia is ranked 103rd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index after falling 26 places, the biggest fall registered by any country in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.”
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