Today, 22 November 2021, media outlets critical of the government were not invited to the briefing [1] planned by the Georgian Minister of Culture. Only a part of the media was allowed to attend. According to Mtavari Arkhi TV [2], the Ministry’s security service did not allow the TV representatives to move around and film in the building for half an hour.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that government bodies have shown a selective attitude towards the media. Some media representatives were also not invited to the briefing [4] held by the Minister of Justice of Georgia on 11 November. We believe that such a discriminatory approach violates the right of media representatives to fulfil their professional duty to receive and disseminate information on important issues. At the same time, it limits society’s ability to follow current events from different sources.
We call on the Ministry of Culture of Georgia to end its discriminatory approach to the media and to allow all journalists equal access to information.
