Levan Loseliani, Georgia’s public defender met Zane Rungule who was recently appointed deputy ambassador of the European Union to Georgia. The meeting took place on October 8, 2024.
Both sides discussed multiple issues at the meeting ranging from human rights, peace and stability to hate speeches. It is worth noting that parties also discussed the country’s state of human rights protection during the pre-election period.
They further discussed the current situation regarding assembly manifestos and freedom of expression, cases of using hate speech and security issues of election process observation missions, media representatives and human rights defenders.
The Public Defender while speaking on the protection of human rights, informed the guest of his evaluations regarding human rights violations in the pre-election period. They further discussed in detail the activities performed within the office’s mandate in this direction as well.
It is to be noted that deputy Ambassador Zane Rungule oversees the political press and information department of the EU Office in Georgia. The first secretary of the representative office and the deputy head of the department Pierre Saglie, also attended the meeting and shared views about the current ground-level situation in Georgia.
The 26th of October has been fixed for the election to the Parliament of Georgia. The opposition political parties blame the ruling parties for putting undue pressure on the voters to influence the result.
At the same time many foreign countries especially Western countries including the USA have expressed their concern about a fair and transparent election as well. The ruling party Georgian Dream is also facing criticism for adopting a foreign agents law.
Although Government defended the law as necessary to ensure transparency in the workings of organisations receiving funding from any foreign country. However opposition parties and social and other organisations have been accusing the government of introducing the law to suppress independent media voices.
As per the provisions of foreign agents law, organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign countries must register themself with government authorities.
