Tbilisi Hangout 011

In the eleventh edition of Tbilisi Hangout Mirian Jugheli, Nick Clayton and Mathias Huter of Transparency International Georgia talk about Georgian media, net freedom, “cohabitation”, ownership transparency, February 8 National Library Incident, etc.

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Georgia: Netizens react to the Saakashvili-Ivanishvili Meeting

The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and the leader of Georgian Dream coalition Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is set to become the Prime Minister of the country, met on October 9 at the presidential palace. The meeting, that was also attended by representatives of the current government and Georgian Dream coalition, lasted for about 35 minutes after which both Saakashvili and Ivanishvili gave commentaries to public. After the first images were out, Georgians on Facebook began to react. Some of them claimed that Ivanishvili looked mad, some wrote that Saakashvili looked sad, others said that the meeting looked like El Clasico (A football match between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona), etc.

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Thousands protest violence in Georgian prisons [PHOTO/VIDEO]

Thousands of students marched in streets of Tbilisi on Wednesday to protest abuse and rape in Georgian prisons. Disturbing videos of prisoners being tortured by guards leaked on TV and immediately sparkled Georgians to come out and stand against violence. A protest was organized by the Tbilisi State University students, however they were joined by all major universities. At 3:30 pm students moved to the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) where they demanded the later to air abuse videos. After negotiating with the General Director of GPB students marched towards the Ministry of Internal Affairs where they were joined by drivers and local neighbors. Students demanded the Minister of Internal Affairs Bacho Akhalia and several other officials to step down. Protests were held in all major Georgian cities and across Europe.

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Medvedev’s Facebook page blocked for Georgians

With Russian soldiers in Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a group of Forum.ge users proposed to mark the Defender of the Fartherland Day on February 23 by posting anti-occupation comments on Dmitry Medvedev’s Facebook page.

Cyxymu (Georgian blogger who was a target of series of attacks on social networking sites Facebook, Google Blogger, LiveJournal and Twitter, taking the latter offline for two hours on August 7, 2009) posted a photo about this campaign on Facebook that got attention of many Georgians. More than 200 Facebook users started to post comments and they still keep doing it:

“Дмитрий Анатольевич, я требую вывода российских оккупационных войск из Грузии!”

“Dmitry Anatolyevich I demand to withdraw Russian occupational forces from Georgia!”

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Georgia: Virtual Parliamentary Speaker Election

Ahead of a parliamentary election in Georgia set for October 2012, David Bakradze, Chair of the current Parliament, is currently the most active member of the ruling party on Facebook. His official page, with 27,526 likes at time of writing, includes photos of visits and meetings as well as of his family. Bakradze has also launched a game called Elections where each person liking his page can run for position of virtual parliamentary chair.

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Tourism in Georgia [Statistics]

Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia has released a detailed data about foreign visitors to Georgia. Tourists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia are leading the list and only 5% of visitors are from the EU. According to MIA, 1,793,449 foreign arrivals have been recorded in January-August, 2011 (2,031,695 people traveled to Georgia in 2010). Most of them were from Azerbaijan - 456,282, 455,611 from Turkey, 448,374 from Armenia and 176,090 from Russia.

2011* - Indicates number of tourists for the January-August period.

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Security Police to Install Cameras in Parks of Tbilisi

Security Police Department of Georgia (spd.ge) began installing cameras in recreational areas and parks of Tbilisi. According to the PR office of SPD, 100 cameras will be installed in 7 parks as a part of the ongoing project “Safe Parks”. The surveillance cameras have already been installed in one of the biggest recreational areas – Vake Park.

Courtesy of president.gov.ge

Most of the recreational areas of Tbilisi are monitored by Security Police personnel; SPD thinks that after installing the cameras their job will get easier.

According to the Security Police, live cameras will allow the department to monitor parks 24/7, minimize the risk of crime and increase response rate on possible incidents.

It has to be noted that under the “Freedom Charter”, that was passed by the Georgian Parliament in May, 2011, Ministry of Internal Affairs is set to create a major surveillance system that will monitor strategic buildings, airports, subway and railway stations, public spaces and etc. It also obliges banks to inform the Ministry about large bank transfers to organisations or individuals.

 

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