06:46, 10 August 2007

Police evicts 10 newspaper editorial boards and 2 TV Companies in the capital of Georgia

The Georgian police are moving about ten editorial boards of Georgian newspapers and two TV Companies out of the building in the centre of Tbilisi.

The policemen who are over 50 in number explain the journalists that they are enforcing the 2006 decision of the Ministry of Economic Development of Georgia, the RIA "Novosti" reports.

In 2006, by decision of the above Ministry the building in Kostava Street was entered into the privatization list. The tenants were asked to leave the building, but the newspapers and TV Companies, among them the Georgian "Kavkassia" Company and the Georgian Bureau of the "MIR" TV Company of the CIS countries, refused to leave the premises.

In her turn, Niko Dzhangirashvili, Director of "Kavkassia," who is quoted by the "Interfax," has stated that the policemen had enticed by deceit the journalists out of the building, saying that a bomb was planted inside.

A protest action is held by the employees of Georgian editions in front of the building, who treat the act of forced eviction as "barbarism and usurpation."