The Daily Beat: 18 August
On August 14, the extraordinary congress of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics decided that the organization would not comply with the Foreign Agents Law, refusing to register in the registry for “the organizations carrying out the interests of a foreign power.” This decision is in line with the decision of the Charter’s Council made on August 8.
In an interview with the Russian daily Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, Chairman of the Maritime Collegium of the Russian Federation and aide to President Putin, blamed the United States for “organizing” the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, calling it “Saakashvili’s military adventurism.” During the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Patrushev was Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
On August 16, Gela Mtivlishvili, editor-in-chief of “Mtis Ambebi”, and Nino Zuriuashvili, investigative journalist with Studio Monitori, filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court against the Foreign Agents Law. This is the fourth Constitutional legal challenge to the law, following the lawsuits of the President, opposition parties, and 121 civil society organizations.
Tech giant Meta has removed Russian-origin accounts and pages on its platforms that criticized protesters against the Foreign Agents Law and supported Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream. In its recently released adversarial threat report, Meta said it removed 76 Facebook accounts, 30 Pages, and eleven Instagram accounts originating in Russia and targeting three South Caucasus countries- Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Meta said that a violation of its policy “against coordinated inauthentic behavior” was the reason for its action.
On August 15, Tamar Chergoleishvili and Giga Bokeria launched a new party called The Federalists. This follows the withdrawal of the two leaders and their supporters from the European Georgia party on August 1 due to internal disagreements triggered by the party primaries. According to Chergoleishvili, the party’s founding congress is expected in mid-September.
On August 17, the leader of the opposition United National Movement (UNM), Tina Bokuchava announced that the rump European Georgia joined the UNM-led “Unity – to Save Georgia” coalition alongside Strategy Agmashenebeli. The platform was launched on July 8.
On August 18, the Republican Party and the organization “Activists for Future” joined the “Coalition for Change,” originally launched by three other opposition parties, Ahali, Girchi-More Freedom, and Droa.
Corrigendum: In the 15 August Daily Beat, we said that according to the GORBI survey, Nika Gvaramia’s Ahali party falls short of the 5% threshold. However, the poll, which was commissioned by pro-government Imedi TV, suggests that 5.5 % would vote for the Coalition for Change, which includes Girchi-More Freedom, Droa, and Ahali. You can find the corrected version of this Daily Beat issue here. We apologize.
