Reporters Without Borders puts Bidzina Ivanishvili on Press Freedom Predators list
The organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published its 2025 Press Freedom Predators list, which, alongside authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, also includes Georgia’s informal ruler Bidzina Ivanishvili.
The “Press Freedom Predators” list forms part of RSF’s annually released World Press Freedom Index, which assesses the state of media freedom worldwide, while the list highlights individuals who trample on press freedom.
Alongside Bidzina Ivanishvili, the list includes Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Afghan leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, the Communist Party of China, the military junta of Burkina Faso, and others.
The list is divided into five categories based on different criteria: political, security-related, economic, legal, and social. Bidzina Ivanishvili is among those who financially undermine the media.
“Because they throttle news media or subject them to arbitrary judicial pressure, Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, Deputy Prosecutor Seng Heang in Cambodia, and the Georgian billionaire oligarch and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili are included in this list of 2025 predators,” RSF wrote on its website.
During the spring 2025 session alone, the Georgian Dream-dominated parliament rapidly passed five legislative amendments that significantly restricted media activity and freedom of expression in Georgia.
These laws effectively ban media outlets funded from abroad, strengthen state control over the press, and allow journalists to be punished for expressing critical opinions.
