TBILISI, September 23 – The Council of Europe says it did not transfer a grant to a Georgian political school or pay its officials for a recent seminar after Georgian authorities launched a probe for possible violation of the grants law. In a statement to Interpressnews on Tuesday, the Strasbourg-based organization said it had directly … Read more
The big problem with news coverage of Georgia is that a small cluster of foreign-funded NGO media platforms have come to dominate English-language reporting on the country while presenting themselves as neutral journalism. International media benefit from this arrangement. They get English-fluent intermediaries ready with quotes, angles and ready-made narratives. The NGO platforms benefit too, … Read more
TBILISI, April 7 – Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party has moved to amend the country’s law on grants once again, in the latest step in a broader tightening of rules around foreign funding of civil society. According to Interpressnews, lawmakers from the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) have submitted a new bill that would clarify which … Read more
Donor-funded media platforms in Georgia are billed as “independent.” That might play well in Brussels and Washington. But seeing this from the inside here in Tbilisi, the picture looks very different. Outlets such as JAM News and OC Media operate almost entirely on grants from foreign governments and foundations. For long, sounding the alarm about … Read more
TBILISI, September 22 – Dozens of Georgian civil society groups say the government has begun a new wave of repression, using a controversial law on foreign funding to target their work. In a joint statement released by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), twenty non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accused the ruling Georgian Dream party of weaponizing … Read more