The human rights organization from across country have levelled allegation against Shalva Papuashvili the speaker of parliament. These organisations also alleged speaker for using his position to influence independent media voices.
It is worth to note that the speaker of Parliament Shalva Papuashvili accused Publika, a Georgian online media house for promoting hateful speeches. On the other hand, immediately after the accusation from speaker the media house “Publika” refused all allegation as baseless.
Moreover, the office bearers of Pubic added that they will continue their duty to spread information in transparent manners. On the other hand, the civil society organisations from across the country also condemned this statement of Georgian speaker of parliament and called this direct attack on media.
They said that this is an attempt by speaker to threat the whole journalist’s community of country which will not be accepted at any cost. It is worth to note that the speaker Shalva Papuashvili on official Facebook page stated that, the any blockage at highways is offence. However publika glorify this act of protesters of blocking the highways.
The speker also said that the online media platform is getting supported by European Union budget. Notably on January 31 Georgian Dream led government has declared the national highway as object. Moreover it has put the national highways in category of strategic and important facilities, criminalizing their blockage.
As many organisations has launched an attack in speaker for his remarks the social justice centre also issued a statement in this regard. The social Justice centre while referring to Facebook post of Papuashvili added, the statement of Georgian parliament speaker on the social media pages is direct threat to independence of media houses as well as to democratic values of countries.
The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics while condemning statement of speaker which he posted on social media handles said, this is very sad to see that a media house is being made accountable for just covering the true facts.
The statement further noted that the statement of Shalva Papuashvili is reflection of approach of Georgian Dream government against the independence of Georgann media which should not be compromised.
