There are just seconds to go until the start of the 6 p.m. show on Mtavari TV, and a small team has crowded into the control room on a side street in the capital, Tbilisi. After a few final instructions, host Mikheil Sesiashvili is on air. The big news this evening is an accident at the university, though no was one was hurt.
Mtavari TV decides for itself what and how it reports. The channel’s staff of roughly 300 has fought hard to make it that way. They set up shop in 2019 in a rebellion against their former employer, whose editorial line was, in their view, too friendly to the government.
The work isn’t easy, as Sesiashvili explained. “I’m hosting a show on a broadcaster whose managing director spent one year and three months in prison for political reasons,” he said.
He hadn’t committed any crimes, but he was critical of the government, added Sesiashvili. “And everyone here in this building is thinking: maybe I’m next.”
Politically motivated convictions for journalists?
In May 2022, Mtavari TV managing director Nika Gvaramia was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. His sentence related to the alleged private use of his company car, which judges argued had financially harmed the broadcaster. But many suspected a political motivation.
The European Union has called on Georgia to release Gvaramia, most recently in its regular review of whether EU accession candidates, including Georgia, fulfill the conditions to start negotiations. At the end of June, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili pardoned Gvaramia.
Nonetheless, Sesiashvili can’t shake the daily thought that journalists can randomly end up in jail. “It’s difficult, but we colleagues try to keep each others spirits up and to concentrate on why we are doing this job. I call us freedom fighters, because we are fighting for a more democratic, freer Georgia,” he said.
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