Committee to protect journalists concerned about an attack of Russian officers on Georgian journalist

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about an attack of Russian officers on Nukri Kacharayev, cameraman of the MZE independent Georgian TV company, when he was covering the withdrawal of Russian military machinery from the military base in Batumi (Ajaria, Georgia) on June 28, runs the information on the CPJ web-site.

The "Caucasian Knot" reported that an MZE correspondent was beaten and his video camera and cassettes with records confiscated by Russian military officers. Journalists Nukri Kacharava and Natiya Zoidze, with the permission of the Georgian military police whose representatives watched the machinery being loaded on the train platforms, were making video recording. "Everything was calm and ordinary. However, as soon as the military police representatives left because the loading had been completed, we were attacked by 5-6 Russian military officers," said Natiya Zoidze. According to the journalists, the militaries, among whom was General Danilov, commander of the Batumi base, beat the cameraman and offended the journalist.

The Batumi military police initiated a criminal investigation of the beating on the same night.