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Compiled by Tekle Murvanidze
Monday, September 14
The ‘Why’ movement does not accept new law

Akhali Taoba reports that the civil movement Ratom (‘Why?’) will begin a new protest action in the near future. One of its founders Luka Tsuladze has said that they will campaign actively against some Government institutions. They will also be protesting against the changes in law on demonstrations during these actions by disobeying them.

Tsuladze said that the Why? members are not afraid of three month imprisonment and no matter how much the authorities increase the penalty they will still protest against the illegality of the law itself. “We are not going to abide by their changes in the law,” said Tsuladze. Either alone or with other NGO and young movements we will start a protest campaign against this code. We are going to commit ourselves to three-month imprisonment duty. We are all ready to go to prison and if they think that if they extend our prison terms they will suppress free speech they are very much mistaken.

“We are not going to protest about restrictions on free speech in the Georgian media only in the front of the Public Broadcasting Company, other Georgian TV companies will also be targeted, although the exact form of these protest actions has not been decided yet,” marked Tsuladze.



Goga Khaindrava: main weapon of Defend Georgia will be protest rallies

Rezonansi reports that Goga Khaindrava of Defend Georgia has said that the major activity of this movement will be holding protest actions.

“Levan Gachechiladze is not the head of this movement. There never has been and is not now any plan to make him our leader. This is not the movement of Levan Gachechiladze. This is a public movement, which will not have a single leader. It will be led by a group of people and whether Levan Gachechiladze is one of them will be established by our standard procedures, which involve holding a congress, electing board members etcetera. Our plans will be made clear on 15th of September at a press conference,” Khaindrava stated.

“It is clear to everybody that we are a non-political organisation. It is not our aim to take power. Holding this position gives us the opportunity to act much more independently. We are not going to take part in elections,” he stated.

Asked whether holding protest actions would be the movement’s basic purpose, Khaindrava answered, “This will be one of our main purposes. I personally think that the only way to get rid of this regime is through protest actions, because those fascists can’t understand civilized conversation. So, one of the strongest weapons, protest actions, will be in our hands. Of course, there will be other means of struggle – many options exist,” Khaindrava added.



New film about Georgia, ‘War and Wedding’, coming soon

In one month cinema audiences will see a new film by director Zaza Kolelishvili. War and Wedding is about the August war and although it is fiction it is in a near-documentary style.

“The film is already so close to completion that audiences will be able to see it in a month. Before that some of it needs to be overdubbed because Georgians still speak Russian with a Georgian accent. I want pure Russian and I am going to dub accordingly.

“The film is in four languages: Ossetian, Georgian, Russian and English. Our first priority was to gain the approval of Georgians, We chose war and wedding as a theme because during the war we still held weddings and I don’t think this would happen in many countries. We highlight this in the film,” added Kolelishvili.