Another attack on JAMnews by the Georgian Parliament Speaker
The Speaker of the Georgian Parliament attacks JAMnews
Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili once again distorts facts to criticize independent media outlet JAMnews.
Papuashvili reiterated the false claim that a JAMnews employee allegedly threatened ruling Georgian Dream party deputies with “84 bullets.”
“Unfortunately, weeks and months have passed, and we have not seen a single European ambassador respond, for example, to threats of 84 bullets from a JAMnews employee against members of parliament. Although this organization is funded by the EU budget, no European diplomat or politician has expressed any concern about this,” the Speaker stated.
JAMnews has repeatedly clarified that the post Papuashvili refers to as a “threat” was merely a citation of graffiti on a bridge in Tbilisi. Our publication has no connection to this graffiti or to the video Papuashvili mentions in this context.
The controversy revolves around a video posted on May 28, 2024, on JAMnews’ Facebook page. The video captures graffiti on the Vakhtang Bridge in Tbilisi, publicly visible, reading: “84 traitors — 84 bullets to the head.”
Here it is in the NYT style:
“Obviously, the graffiti references the 84 parliamentary votes cast in favor of the ‘foreign agents’ law, suggesting that these votes put the entire country at risk.”
However, it later appeared that interpretations of the message varied significantly. Papuashvili started asserting that our publication was using funds from the European Union to encourage direct violence against these deputies.
To avoid any misinterpretations, JAMnews later removed the video and affirmed its staunch opposition to violence in any form.
JAMnews has repeatedly clarified this in a special statement on its website and in comments to pro-government media outlets.
However, despite this, the propaganda machine of the Georgian Dream continues to deliberately spread falsehoods and attack independent media.
The attacks persist through official statements as well as propaganda pages on Facebook and troll bots.
Most active in this regard is the parliament speaker himself.
Interestingly, preceding Papuashvili’s statement today was a post of identical content on one of the fake propaganda pages on Facebook, where fake posts inciting hatred often appear targeting journalists, activists, and NGO representatives.
“Two months have passed since Irakli Datunashvili, a journalist from JAMnews funded by foreign grants, made a threat to shoot [deputies] in the head. To this day, not a single donor has reacted to this. Moreover, he [Datunashvili] likely still receives a salary from a foreign grant. Denial of violence is encouragement of violence,” writes the mentioned page, which we intentionally do not link to.
Soon after this publication, the statement from the Speaker of Parliament followed.
Earlier, Papuashvili had already made several statements regarding JAMnews. On June 11, he posted on Facebook accusing specific journalists and activists (including our publication) of an “organized and politically motivated terrorist campaign.”
Exactly one hour after the publication of this post, the mentioned civil activist Zuka Berdzenishvili was assaulted near his home.
At that time, we issued a statement expressing concern that the attack on Zuka Berdzenishvili suggests potential danger to our staff, and JAMnews holds the government fully responsible for this.
