Ruling party secretary: US embassy statement “admission” Mtavari Arkhi TV is opposition outlet

Mamuka Mdinaradze, the executive secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Wednesday said the statement by United States embassy lamenting court decision keeping Mtavari Arkhi TV director in imprisonment meant the diplomatic office had “admitted for the first time” the channel was a “party media” for the opposition.

Mdinaradze was commenting on the statement of the American diplomatic mission that said on Wednesday the “continued imprisonment of Nika Gvaramia, the Director General of the main opposition TV channel, puts at risk the clear choice of the people of Georgia”.

“Surprising as it may be, this statement did not say that the head of an objective media had been imprisoned, nor was another similar term used - instead, it was about a party media [outlet]”, Mdinaradze noted.

It is a very important detail that they talk about the head of a party media, or the ‘main opposition’ media. So [this means that] the US embassy for the first time today admitted that it is a party media that we have been talking about for so long”, the GD official said.

Mdinaradze also noted the statement of the embassy lacked “specific arguments” in its comments on the court ruling.

“It would have been clearer if specific arguments had been given in the statement. I suspect they did not have a specific argument, especially a legal argument. That is why they had to make a general statement”, he noted.

The embassy release said it reiterated “our deep concern regarding today’s decision in the case” of Gvaramia, noting “[n]umerous international and Georgian human rights defenders have raised significant questions about this case from the start, including about the timing and charges, as well as the conviction and sentence”.

The Tbilisi court of appeals on Wednesday upheld the verdict of the Tbilisi city court against the head of the Mtavari Arkhi channel, and kept him in imprisonment for charges of having caused damage through commercial deals to Rustavi 2 channel he led in 2015 and 2019.