Court fines "Free Georgia" Party for demonstration of xenophobia in pre-election video clip

The Tbilisi City Court fined 2000 laris (about 1140 US dollars) the "Free Georgia" Party for xenophobic appeals in pre-election video clip.

The elections to the Parliament of Georgia and the Supreme Council of Adzharia Autonomy are scheduled for October 1. The elections will be held on proportional and majoritarian system. Citizens of Georgia are to elect 150 members of the Parliament of the republic.

The reason for today's consideration at the court was the statement of an NGO "Multinational Georgia".

The pre-election video of the "Free Georgia" Party mentions in negative way foreigners, homosexuals and religious minorities, the "Georgia Online" quotes Kakhaber Nareklishvili, Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) as stating.

However, Kakha Kukava, the leader of the "Free Georgia" Party, has claimed that he strictly disagrees with the fact that the NGO had reason to file a lawsuit to the court for xenophobia.

"The lawsuit contain accusations that we demand to make inscriptions on offices, stores and other organizations in the city only in Georgian or in Georgian and foreign languages to prevent situations when an inscription is made in English or French only, like it happens now," Kakha Kukava has explained. He has noted that he did not demand anything new, since the Georgian law on outdoor advertising provides for mandatory presence of an inscription in Georgian.

"There was also an allegation that we demand to give ownership of land plots only to ethnic Georgians. Actually, when we talked about banning to give ownership of land plots to foreign companies, we did not mention ethnicity," the leader of the Party stated.