The Tbilisi City Court upheld the claim of the Georgian Dream party and issued a fine for the TV channels Formula, Mtavari Arkhi and TV Pirveli, which refused to show on their channels an election video with images of destroyed Ukrainian cities.
Georgian Dream appealed to the National Communications Commission of Georgia, which recognized the violation of the electoral code by the TV channels and issued protocols on an administrative violation. Each TV channel was fined five thousand lari, which is about 177 thousand rubles. The action took place on October 5, 2024.
Lawyer of the Mtavari Arkhi TV channel Tamta Muradashvili said that the court also ordered the TV channels to immediately show the video without waiting for the appeal to be considered. However, she added:
“We are not going to comply with this decision” and expressed her intention to appeal the court’s decision.
On October 5, the TV channels published a joint statement in which they noted that Georgian Dream is using the tragedy of the Ukrainian people for the purposes of a political campaign. In letters to the National Commission, TV channels called the video unethical and pointed to its military propaganda, as well as calls to incite ethnic hatred and intimidate voters with war.
At the end of September, Georgian Dream posted election posters on street billboards and on its social media with images of Ukrainian cities destroyed as a result of the Russian invasion, comparing them to Georgian cities and calling for “Choose Peace.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry condemned the use of images of the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian war in political advertising as unacceptable. Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Kobakhidze said that comparing war and peace is important for society to make the right choice. Parliamentary elections in Georgia are scheduled for October 26, 2024.