Category: media freedom

Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation statement with English subtitles

March 10, 2010 by georgiamedia

This is Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation statement on 8 November 2007 - for the first time (we believe) with English subtitles.

The contrast with the statement of the previous day (see here) could hardly be clearer.

As is so often the case with Saakashvili when he felt weak (as on 7 November) he appeared contrite and conciliatory, saying the day before that he thought the vast majority of the opposition were patriots and not involved in any foreign conspiracy.

Now that his police force have beaten the opposition off the streets, smashed up the country's most popular TV station and demonstrated that they are able to act above the law in association with masked and armed gangs, he feels confident enough to change his story and label the events of the previous day as a defence of democracy against a pre-planned foreign attack.

The anti-pluralist mindset of the president is also apparent: he regards the fact that no-one of any significance disagrees with him or is able to exert significant influence in the state is a good thing. Overall the speech feels more like the Czar telling his subjects how good he is to them rather than that of a democratic president asking for a new endorsement.

Once again we have used Civil.ge's translation. Let us know of any errors or omissions.

Update: Unfortunately the first upload suffered from sychronisation problems, hopefully the version here now is better, but the poor quality of the original video remains - though we have cleaned up the sound somewhat. If you want your own copy you can download an AVI file from here.

Transitions Online and Liberali: Depoliticising the public broadcaster

March 7, 2010 by georgiamedia

Public TV depoliticization from Elene Asatiani on Vimeo.

Transitions Online and Liberali magazine have produced a series of videos about public life and politics in Georgia. The contents appears to be subscriber-only, at least in part, but the videos are free to view.

This one examines the issue of reforming and depoliticising the board of the public broadcaster. You can read some more background to this here.

Mikheil Saakashvili's televised address on 7 November 2007 with English subtitles

March 7, 2010 by georgiamedia

This address is not just here for historical reasons - though we think it is the only subtitled version of this address that is available, so it is important in that sense.

It gives a real insight into the character and political praxis of Mikheil Saakashvili. Part histrionic, part hectoring, it is the work of a show man but also someone possessed of a close-to-messianic view of their own historical importance.

Some points worth noting are:

• He fails to announce he has actually declared a state of emergency and ordered special forces to storm the Imedi TV station (which happened within an hour of the end of this address)
• He spends much of the twenty three minutes telling his audience he is in favour of human rights and freedom of expression before spending the last few minutes saying that he will not tolerate public division because - apparently - it looks bad on foreign television
• He says that the majority of the Georgian opposition are true patriots - he has spent much of the two years since claiming the opposite
• He claims to have concrete evidence that the oppoition - or at least party of it - is engaged in a concrete conspiracy with Russian secret services - yet sixteen months later nobody has been convicted in even a Georgian court for this
• He claims that the Georgian judiciary are well able to able to hold the executive to account - these days even he admits that the judiciary is not up to scratch

The transcript is based on that provided by Civil.ge - please let us know of any errors or omissions, either in the comments box or by email (georgiamediacentre@gmail.com). Because of the way he garbles parts and appears to cut his microphone off on at least two occassions, while at other times racing through his text, the translation and the speech are at times somewhat out of synch - but we have tried to keep it readable.

The first time Arveladze shut down Imedi

March 4, 2010 by georgiamedia

Giorgi Arveladze gives details of Mikheil Saakashvili's state of emergency in the early hours of 8 November 2007.

Just hours earlier special forces, acting under the orders of Mikheil Saakashvili, had stormed and smashed up the Imedi TV station.

Arveladze is now director-general of Imedi and reports in Tbilisi suggest that the station might be on the verge of a second - likely permanent - closure, as the government runs out of money and political will to keep on subsidising it.

Despite Arveladze's denials the threat of Imedi's closure is real

March 4, 2010 by georgiamedia

Giorgi Arveladze, director-general of the Imedi TV company faces the prospect of being the man who closed the TV station down twice - despite a denial in today's Georgian press.

Arveladze first closed the station down when as Mikheil Saakashvili's economy minister he announced the declaration of a state of emergency on 7 November 2007 - shorly after armed special forces had stormed the station and forced it off air.

Now, along with turmoil at the highest staff level - their head of news resigned yesterday - the station, which is believed never to have made a profit and is all but totally dependent on "state aid" to stay on air, faces closure for economic and political reasons.

The station is believed to be carrying significant amounts of debt on its balance sheet and repayments are causing difficulty, as the only way they can be made is with more money from the state. Georgia's exchequer is already in deep trouble with declining tax revenues at home and a large structural deficit, so additional state cash is difficult to secure.

Politically some in the Saakashvili regime are also believed to think that the station has outlived its usefulness. Although they were desperate to take it from founder Badri Patarkatsishvili in November 2007 and then equally anxious to prevent it from falling back into his family's hands after the billionaire's sudden death in February 2008, the schemes they used then are all unravelling.

At the time New York based businessman Joseph Kay claimed he was the executor of Patarkatsishvili's will. Kay was a distant relative of Patarkatsishvili and also said that the station's founder had charged him with looking after Imedi. Although Kay has lost cases to Patarkatsishvili's family outside Georgia and has now resorted to claiming that Badri's widow murdered her husband, he has won cases in Georgia.

Kay then claimed to have sold 90% of Imedi to local representatives of the Ras Al-Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA) in February 2009. He even introduced someone he called Mark Monem as their representative (watch video to see Rustavi 2 report from the time). These new owners brought in Arevladze to manage the station.

Although the claim that RAKIA were behind the sale was backed up by President Saakashvili's staff, it has since been revealed to be a lie: at least that is what RAKIA's current public position on the issue - that they never bought the station - suggests.

With Kay's claims to legal ownership of Patarkatsishvili's assets under legal seige and the ownership issue causing sever embarrassment to both the friendly government of Ras Al-Khaimah (at the very least RAKIA were guilty of saying nothing while what they knew to be a lie was repeated again and again in the Georgian media) and Mikheil Saakashvili himself, the authorities may decide to cut their losses and just let the station go bankrupt.

After all, Rustavi 2 is as loyal as ever.