About 80 employees of "PIK" TV Channel hold protest outside Georgian Parliament

Staff members of the "PIK" TV Channel held a protest action in front of the Parliament building in Kutaisi. During an hour, the journalists invited politicians and MPs to the table, set right in the street, and asked them to express their position on the closure of the "PIK" TV Channel. The interviewed politicians spoke in favour of maintaining the Russian-language TV Channel in Georgia.

Participants of the protest action were holding posters and chanting slogans: "Let 'PIK' speak!", "Freedom of Speech to 'PIK'!"

A journalist of the "PIK" TV Channel, participating in the protest action, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the administration of the TV Channel did not join the journalists in attending the protest action.

Besides, the journalists also held a kind of news broadcast near the Parliament, where they asked questions to the politicians of the country, and most of them spoke in favour of maintaining the country's only Russian-language TV Channel.

"We will consider the issue," said Bidzina Ivanishvili, appointed today to be the Prime Minister of Georgia, when approached the table.

According to Kakha Kaladze, Minister of Energetics, the "PIK" TV Channel should be maintained.

"You have every right to express your protest," said to the journalists the lawyer Eka Beseliya, MP from the coalition "Georgian Dream".

Shota Malashkhiya, a representative of the "United National Movement", also promised to draw attention to the issue. "The issue will certainly be considered, since this TV Channel should exist in our country."