Owner Suspends Newspaper Publishing

Owner of the Georgian-language weekly newspaper, Georgian Times, Malkhaz Gulashvili, said he was suspending publishing of the paper in protest against, what he called, a pressure on his family by the authorities.

At a news conference on March 17, Gulashvili has claimed that the police last week stopped a car in which his son was driving and searched him and his friends at the gun point, which, he said was, “a psychological terror” on him.

The Interior Ministry has strongly denied the allegations and said in a statement that it was not aware of a brief detention and search of Gulashvili’s son.

“We categorically rule out that any kind of pressure has been exerted either on Mr. Gulashvili, or his family and employees of [his media holding],” the statement reads. “Mr. Gulashvili can pass any available additional information to the Interior Ministry.”

Gulashvili also claimed that the authorities’ pressure on him was related with his recent participation in a conference dedicated to Georgia-Russia relations in Vienna on March 13.

The conference, which Gulashvili said was organized by Freedom Party of Austria, was extensively covered by the Georgian television stations and their reports were suggesting that the event was backed by the Kremlin and some Moscow-based ethnic Georgians with links to the Russian authorities. Leaders of Industrialist Party, Gogi Topadze and Zurab Tkemaladze, also participated in the conference, as well as a controversial former lawmaker Levan Pirveli, who now lives in Austria.

“This conference in Vienna triggered mixed reactions in Georgia,” Gulashvili said. “The authorities started discrediting participants of the event. Unfortunately some ‘opposition figures’ have also followed the suit.”

President Saakashvili also mentioned the event in his public speech on March 14, when he said that he had seen “on the TV how Levan Pirveli, who was a godfather of the Georgian mafia in charge of power sector, was preaching us from Vienna.” Saakashvili said Levan Pirveli, against whom murder allegations persisted, “fled to Vienna and now is trying from there to grab back Georgia.” “Revanchists will fail,” he added.

Gulashvili, who is also a chairman of a Georgian-Russian public council set up after the August war, said that he would continue publishing the English-language newspaper – also called the Georgian Times.

Gulashvili is a business partner of the Georgian Industrial Group (GIG), a conglomerate owned by lawmaker from the ruling party, Davit Bezhuashvili – a brother of Gela Bezhuashvili, chief of the Georgian intelligence service. Gulashvili is a shareholder of the business news agency, Georgian Business Consulting, in which GIG is a majority shareholder. GIG also owns shares in Rustavi 2; Mze and Pirveli Sterao TV stations.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)