Amidst Election Campaign Communications Commission and Court Impose Unfair Fine on Critical Media
Since the beginning of September of this year, “Georgian Dream” has been airing a pre-election advertisement on national broadcasters, in which the representatives of non-governmental organisations, including those that represent organisations monitoring 2024 parliamentary elections, are portrayed in an extremely unethical, unfair and misleading context. The broadcaster “Mtavari” refused to air this advertisement due to non-compliance with the law, while “TV Pirveli” and “Formula” removed it shortly after being aired. As a result, the Communications Commission, and later the Court, imposed on each of them fines of GEL 5,000.
In addition, according to TV channels, although they have appealed to the higher court against the lower court’s decision, on September 19 the Communications Commission heard the issue once again and issued another administrative offence statement against the above TV companies. It is expected that the court will impose on them another penalty of not less than GEL 10,000 each.
In the advertisement video, a collage of photographs of representatives of non-governmental organisations and other individuals is displayed against the backdrop of the phrase “Say no to the moral degradation of society”. The video makes the individuals depicted in it the targets of hate groups and incites violence against them, posing a threat to their personal safety, which has already been demonstrated on numerous occasions, including in the recent past.
The fact that the advertisement is broadcasted as a free pre-election advertisement in the network, because of the high intensity these kinds of advertisements are being broadcasted, is a critical factor as well as it is impossible and unrealistic for representatives of civil society organisations to provide a proportional response to the accusations made in these advertisements. It should be highlighted that representatives from several civil organisations targeted in the video, including “Transparency International - Georgia” and “Georgia’s European Orbit”, will also be observing the October 26 elections.
We believe that the inclusion of representatives from these organisations in the “Georgian Dream” election video marks the continuation of the ruling party's coordinated and planned attacks against local monitoring organisations and intends to cause reputational damage to monitoring organisations. Meanwhile, the Communications Commission and the court's decisions deliver a financial blow to critical media outlets.
“Transparency International - Georgia” and “Georgia’s European Orbit” filed complaints with the National Communications Commission, requesting that the “Georgian Dream’s” advertisements, in their current forms, be removed from the broadcasting network. “Georgia’s European Orbit” also appealed to the Central Election Commission.
We urge the “Georgian Dream” party to cease its discreditation campaign against monitoring organisations and enable critical media outlets to continue operating throughout the pre-election period without interruptions. We further urge the government media to stop participating in discrediting campaigns against monitoring organisations and to remove the aforementioned footage from the air.