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Good laws, weak practice put media freedom at risk

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  • Good laws, weak practice put media freedom at risk

    Good laws, weak practice put media freedom at risk
    By Warren Hedges

    The Messenger, Georgia
    29 Oct. 2004

    The OSCE's text on repealing criminal libel laws
    'Ending the chilling Effect' was authored in part
    by Georgia's Prosecutor General Zurab Adeishvili


    Already facing heavy criticism for its treatment of human rights
    concerns and respect for political plurality, the Georgian government
    received serious criticism this week for its record on access to
    information and press freedoms.

    Over 50 Journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia gathered in
    Tbilisi October 26-27 for the First South Caucasus Media Conference
    sponsored by the OSCE office of Freedom of the Media and the OSCE
    Mission to Georgia.

    On the one hand, organizers said that Georgia is at the forefront
    of media freedom by passing some of the world's most liberal laws on
    defamation in July this year that decriminalized libel and slander,
    meaning that journalists no longer have to fear jail time in case
    they are accused.

    OSCE's representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti,
    who hosted the conference, noted Georgia "belongs to the vanguard
    not just in the CIS, Eastern Europe or even Western Europe but also
    globally. It is among the five countries in the world that have
    decriminalized libel."

    The other country's where libel laws carry no criminal liability
    - though they preserve civil liability - are the United States,
    Moldova, Ukraine and Bosnia Herzegovina. By lifting the fear of
    criminal prosecution, the OSCE's Haraszti noted that these countries
    reinforce modern civilization where journalists cannot be arrested
    if someone disagrees with what they print or broadcast.

    While Georgia's legal statutes won praise, media analysts express
    serious concern over how the laws are enforced and how the government
    respects media freedom in practice.

    Earlier this month, the media freedom watchdog Article 19 published a
    report on Freedom of Information and the Media in Armenia, Azerbaijan
    and Georgia and criticized the new Georgian government for its
    failure to provide free access to information and several incidents
    of officials intimidating journalists.

    Article 19's Europe Program Officer Iryna Smolina authored the report
    and also attended the Tbilisi conference where she told The Messenger
    that the new government has employed the "chameleon method" whereby
    "they changed names and changed their declarations but they have
    retained the same methods with the media."

    In a survey of journalists and government officials in Georgia,
    Article 19 found that both groups agreed that public bodies are under
    a legal obligation to provide information to the public. But Smolina
    explains that official bodies under the new government have an even
    worse record of releasing public information.

    Over the first nine months of the year, Article 19 has documented
    numerous cases when journalists attempts to gain public information
    have been denied through delays, procedural problems such as the
    restructuring of government offices and the absence of official
    offices to handle freedom of information requests.

    In its report commissioned by the OSCE, Article 19 notes that despite
    the Rose Revolution in Georgia, "public institutions until now retained
    the secrecy and the attitudes of their predecessor regimes."

    The report also includes several cases of intimidation of journalists
    that have occurred in 2004. In addition to the highly-publicized case
    of Gori editor Rezo Okruashvili, who was jailed on planted evidence,
    Article 19 records the cases of journalists who were threatened and/or
    attacked by government officials and members of the National Movement.

    In May 2004, the editor of a regional Kakheti paper was beaten in an
    attack he said was inspired by local authorities. Then in July he was
    attacked again and robbed. A day after the robbery he recognized the
    attacker as a member of the ruling party and a close friend of the
    local gamgebeli.

    While lawyer Iryna Smolina says that better government policies are
    needed, she also notes that Georgian media must do more to create
    independent editorial policies. Many journalists, she says, have put
    themselves in a weak position through self-censorship and unwillingness
    to learn or use many of the laws that exist for their protection. "The
    only way to make the laws work is to use the law," she says.

    A day after the OSCE conference closed Georgia received another wake-up
    call when independent watchdog Reporters Without Borders announced
    its third annual worldwide index of press freedom, dropping Georgia
    to 94th position out of 167 countries. In 2003, Georgia ranked 73rd
    out of 166 countries.

    In a brief explanation of Georgia's ranking, Reporters Without Borders
    said the drop "is largely due to unrest in the autonomous republics
    of Adjara and Abkhazia, which gave rise to press freedom violations."

    That report covers events from September 1, 2003 through September 1,
    2004, and is based on questionnaires sent to partner organizations
    of Reporters Without Borders, as well as to journalists, researchers,
    jurists and human rights activists.
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