Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.ge
The IRFS calls on the European Institutions and the Council of Europe to demand from the Georgian authorities a stop to use of the court powers in a bid to suppress activities by critical civil society organisations, including those supporting media.
According to the Civil Georgia, on 12 June a court order was issued which required Transparency International (TI) Georgia, Sapari, Civil Society Foundation, Economic Policy Research Center, and Georgia’s Future Academy hand over private data concerning their beneficiaries to the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau’s interest in personal details of civil society activists and journalists, who are among beneficiaries of the Civil Society Foundation and Transparency International Georgia (members of the Media Advocacy Coalition) is uncalled for. It will also have a chilling effect on other organisations, which provide legal and other types of support to journalists.
The Georgian authorities have started application of the recent controversial laws on Grants, on Political Associations of Citizens, and on Combatting Corruption in a bid to suppress scrutiny by civil society.
This move may not pass unnoticed and uncommented by European politicians. We must stand with Georgian activists and journalists.