Security Service: ‘interviews of opposition-minded TV concerning alleged artificial increase in coronavirus cases were deliberately distorted’

The Georgian State Security Service (SSS) says that Azerbaijani-language interviews concerning an alleged artificial increase in coronavirus cases in Georgia, prepared by opposition-minded TV channel Mtavari Arkhi on June 20, were deliberately distorted by the authors of the programme through incorrect translation.

Mtavari Arkhi reported that people were offered money in Marneuli municipality of eastern Georgia to confirm in official documents that their family members had died because of the coronavirus, while the real reason behind their death was a different health issue.

In order to spread fake news, representatives of particular political parties and their supporters responded to the Mtavari Arkhi TV story through social networks and TV interviews, and tried to convince society that the information was true. As a result of several interviews with the respondents of Mtavari Arkhi the State Security Service has found that the content of the interviews was deliberately distorted by its authors. Nobody offered money to the inhabitants of Marneuli municipality in exchange for naming coronavirus as the reason for the death of their family members”, reports the agency.

In its official statement the SSS says that certain forces and groups are trying to disrupt the normal functioning of state institutions and organisations through spreading disinformation via social media and media outlets. 

The agency has already interrogated two journalists of Mtavari Arkhi – Arkinaz Guliyeva and Zanura Talibova who reported from Marneuli.