Incidents Involving Rustavi 2, Public TV Journalists at Protest Venue
A journalist and a cameraman from the Rustavi 2 TV said they were insulted and the cameramen physically assaulted by unknown young men at the protest venue outside the Parliament on April 27.
The cameraman, Levan Kalandia, said three drunken youngsters approached and started to insult a journalist Natia Lekishvili, which grew into a verbal quarrel and then into a brawl. Video footage, aired by the national television stations on Tuesday morning, shows a young man hitting a fist to the cameraman.
In a separate incident also involving a journalist occurred, when a reporter from the public TV was reporting live from the protest venue outside the Parliament, standing on a specially erected stage for TV crews; during her reporting a group of protesters were whistling and chanting “Go, Go.”
“Several people from the radical opposition are now here and addressing us in this form, making our work impossible,” the public TV journalist said in live from the scene.
After the live link-up with studio was over, protesters continued complaining to the journalist about, what they called, biased and incomprehensive coverage of ongoing protests by the public broadcaster.
Meanwhile, activists from the opposition youth groups are forming a small live chain of so called “corridor of shame” at the entrance of the public broadcaster every morning through which employees have to pass before entering into the building.
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