Media.ge, Tbilisi, 30 Dec 2008 – Georgian journalists’ free movement from the Tbilisi controlled territories to the South Ossetian and Abkhazian breakaway regions in Georgia is still restricted notwithstanding the international organizations’ resistance.
The last fact of the detention of journalists last came about on December 27. Mari Otarashvili and Giorgi Putkaradze, the Rezonansi newspaper journalists were detained in Akhalgori, the territory occupied by Russian troops. The detainees remained in custody for a few hours.
The Rezonansi journalists crossed the administrative border in a minibus. Their ID cards were first checked at the Georgian checkpoint, and afterwards at the Russian one. The journalists did not reveal their line of work.
Granting an interview to the Rezonansi Otarashvili and Putkaradze recollected their detention at the Akhalgori hospital when recording an interview with the doctor on duty.
The journalists were taken to the police station. “We were not treated in a severe way … the aggression was easily observable, but not towards ordinary people, just Georgian authorities,” journalists said. The police officers searched the journalists, but the records were not found, as they had been well hidden together with the documents.
“We were suggested to be taken around the city in return for telling the truth. They didn’t take any sweets from us. Eventually our artistic talent worked and we were released, after having noted down our personal data. Afterwards we were given free exit at the de facto order but instead we encountered problems with the Georgian frontier-guards – they considered us as Kokoity spies,” journalists reported.
On September 22 the OSCE representative on freedom of press Miklosh Harasti called upon all sides of the conflict to secure free access of journalists to the crisis regions controlled by the Russian Federation such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia. All illegal restrictions imposed on the movement of journalists in these regions are to be lifted, Harasti stressed.
The resolution adopted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly on the Georgian-Russian war calls upon both countries to secure “safe and unhindered access” by media to the conflict zone.
Number of View: 4862