Vasil Maghlaperidze, Director General of Georgian Public Broadcaster has published a statement in response to the report of the international organization Freedom House and the corrected error made by the same organization referring to the First Channel of The Georgian Public Broadcaster.

The statement reads as following:

“Freedom House partially corrected one error of fact, which was made in its report with regard to the First Channel, which is good and complimentary news, however it is totally insufficient, because in this report we still observe categorically false or very controversial facts and assessments based on them.

Consequently, the desire and demands have been naturally emerged to make the procedure transparent on how and who supplies the organisation with the information, because opinion about the current situation in Georgia is formed based on such types of reports abroad.

The impartiality and competence of information suppliers are of vital importance, especially amid disinformation propaganda wave from Russia. And dissemination of incorrect facts and interpretations by the Freedom House will further damage the process of perceiving the events correctly.

Despite the corrections made into the document yesterday, inaccurate facts still remain in the Freedom House’s report, including regarding media and specifically regarding the First Channel, the discussion about it should be continued. One assessment on TV Imedi is especially alarming which concerns not only one TV Company but represents the fact of distorting the Georgia’s latest history.

The report states that until 2012 TV Company Imedi was critical toward the government ruled by National Movement party and after the government change it became loyal toward the current authorities.

Everybody knows what happened around Imedi TV – intrusion and seizure of the TV company by the government, amid blackmailing, persecuting and imprisoning the journalists. These are commonly known facts, so it is clear that in this case we deal with deliberate falsification of the facts, which is directed against the democracy.

Georgia has managed to escape from this shameful period of time, when the entire state control over the whole media space was imposed and those who delivering completely “upside-down” information to the Freedom House and other authoritative organizations, is trying to present black  as a white and rewrite the history with the aim to return back to the past.

As far as I know, the Freedom House report is scheduled to be presented on April 18 in Washington DC.  Therefore, it is very important to have timely and active communication with the Freedom House in order to correct the distorted facts in the report until they will be placed in consciousness deeply. Also, it is important to find out the real reasons how false information got in the report – reads the statement released on facebook page of Vasil Maghlaperidze.

International organization Freedom House has admitted mistake and corrected it, which was made in the 2017 report with regard to the Georgian Public Broadcaster. The report of Freedom House of 2017 said that Second Channel of GPB that broadcast parliamentary sessions was closed.

The organization amended the document on April 13. “An early version of this report incorrectly stated that the second channel of the public broadcaster GPB was closed down. The Channel still operates but its content has been reduced” – the note attached to the report reads.