If you could put the former Soviet state of Georgia on the couch, it would look like it was suffering from a particularly acute case of paranoia. But is there method in the supposed madness of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s obsession with Russian spies? (more…)
How should the Tblisi authorities respond to the police assaults on reporters covering anti-government protests at the end of May? Boyko Boev reports
A number of Georgian journalists claim they were attacked by a Special Forces police unit who broke up a protest on 26 May. Officers surrounded them and inflicted verbal and physical abuse while removing video equipment and making arrests. A number of journalists were detained for several hours. Beka Sivsivadze, from the independent newspaper, Asaval-Dasavali, claimed: “I told them that we were the journalists but they beat us harder when they heard it.”
A teacher from the UK is suing Georgian media for libel. Thomas Fletcher says journalists have spread false information about him by publishing his photos from Facebook under the headline “Sexual games of Thomas and his friends”. Fletcher is participating in a two-year program run by the Georgian ministry of education “Teach and Learn with Georgia” which started on March 1, teaching English in the country. Minister of education and science Dimitry Shashkin said he personally apologized to the insulted teacher.