VOA常速英语2007年-Georgia's Media Shutdown has Significant Impact

Independent media were taken off the air in Georgia when President Mikhail Saakashvili declared a state of emergency in response to mass anti-government demonstrations¹ in Tbilisi. VOA Correspondent Peter Fedynsky is in the Georgian capital, where managers of the country's most popular independent television station told him the shutdown was not just a matter of turning off a switch.

Until it was forced off the air, Imedi TV was rated Georgia's most popular television station. Today, Imedi, which means "Hope" in the Georgian language, is out of business - no broadcasts, no advertising² revenue.

The station's general director, Bidzina Baratashvili, says troops barged into Imedi's studio at nine o'clock on the evening of November 7, without identification or warrants.

Baratashvili says they held guns to the heads of employees, including his own, and destroyed 90 percent of the station's equipment, cutting cables and upsetting editing suites³, studios and control rooms. He says even an irreplaceable video tape library was demolished⁴. The damage is documented on photographs taken with a cell phone camera that was not confiscated⁵ during the raid.

Baratashvili says he prefers not to believe that Georgian leaders, who declare principles of democracy and free speech, would give an order to vandalize and destroy everything that happened to be in the way.

But an American businessman from Atlanta, Georgia and chief executive officer of Imedi TV, Lewis Robertson, is less charitable. He accuses the president of ordering the raid, and the local mayor of being part of it.

Robertson represents News Corporation, a co-owner of Imedi along with billionaire businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili a declared candidate for the Georgian presidency⁶. On October 31, Patarkatsishvili gave News Corporation 100 percent control of management to avoid conflict of interest at the station. News Corps⁷, the world's largest media organization, is owned by Australian-American billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

Robertson says the company will file a suit against the Georgian government at the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg and will also sue for damages. In addition to its business interests, Robertson says News Corporation must also protect the principle of a free press.

"This is a bigger issue than Georgia, and I do not think that the government understands that," said Lewis Robertson. "And if they think that News Corporation will back down on this and say, 'OK, let us just forget it,' they are wrong, because this will happen again in another country, and another country, and another country, and pretty soon you do not have any press at all."

Meanwhile, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza arrived in Georgia calling for an end to the state of emergency and restoration of all independent media. He met on with Imedi representatives, noting theirs is not the only station affected⁸ by emergency rule.

"Viewers are smart enough, astute⁹ enough, to recognize Imedi portrays¹⁰ one view, Rustavi Two portrays another view," said Matthew Bryza. "You have to have all of those views out there in the marketplace of ideas, or you cannot argue you have a vibrant¹¹ democracy. So, all broadcasts need to be resumed."

Imedi offices remain closed. Station officials say members of the European Commission were allowed in over the weekend. Lewis Robertson says they reported the premises¹² were too clean, with a lingering scent¹³ of cleaning solution and desks arranged so neatly¹⁴ as to suggest no work had ever been done there.