Pubic TV Board Snubs Opposition Demand for Monitoring Body
The board of trustees of the Georgian Public Broadcaster said opposition’s demand to set up monitoring body “to control” the TV station’s news coverage was unacceptable.
The eight-party opposition bloc demanded on May 27 from the public TV to set up “a monitoring council, involving independent journalists, to carry out control over the news coverage.”
Levan Gakheladze, the deputy chairman of the public TV’s board, said “ultimatum” and attempt to impose censorship was inadmissible for the board. He made the statement on behalf of the seven members of the board. The board consists of nine members; its chairman, however, announced earlier on Friday that he was resigning, as a result now there are eight members of the block. One member, Mikheil Chiaureli, did not sign the decision of the board.
The board has also said in its decision that it would continue discussions over the opposition’s two other demands – one is to air video footage, which, as the opposition says, shows cases of ballot-rigging and another one is allocation of one hour of live airtime to the opposition everyday.
