Journalists living in Pankisi valley are being threatened

Pankisi community radio journalist Islam Gorgishvili and his brother, photoreporter Osman Gorgishvili are threatened with death ppunishment. They stated it today. According to them, due to the  journalistic activities, they and  their family members were threatened with retaliation by the Kist (Chechen) nationality citizens of the Pankisi Gorge.

They warned their parents too, that he and his brother, Osman Gorgishvili, who is photo reporter at “Mtavari News Kakheti”, must leave the offices and no longer continue journalistic activities. Physical attack on activists was carried out.

As the journalists say: “We get death threats, citing the fact, that we filmed the events of April 21 on photos and videos, making it easy to identify local citizens who committed the violence. Although many other journalists worked on the ground, they claim we are local residents and should not have done so. In particular Osman shouldn’t have taken the photos, neither in the process of praying nor when they oppossed the riot police armed with cudgels. The more insecure we felt after the police did not support us,” said in a statement.

They say that have already applied to the police for help. During the interrogation, Islam Gorgishvili named the persons who met his family members in the mosque following the prayer:

“Despite being warned not to contact the police, we still decided to apply. We were summoned to the police and asked officers to respond adequately to death threats, but instead we became victims of blackmail and threats by the police. They told us they would not investigate and warned that if we did not stop our activities and professional work around the hydropower plants construction issue, they would respond in a bad way.”

Akhmeta police say that they will study the case and will be legally prescribed response.

Reminder, in the village of Dzibakhevi, LTD “Alazani Enetgy” resumed the construction of Khadori 3 HPP on April 21, at 7 am, accompanied by the police and special forces. The construction works were suspended since June 2018, due to the protests of locals. Local residents opposed HPP construction in the valley for more than 2 years and have been waiting for the dialogue with state, in order to get answers on the questions. They believe that this will be equal to ecological disaster and hurt the environment significantly.

A very small part of locals support hydropower plant construction. Mainly those who are supporters of ruling political party.  Power plant construction  in favor of Ramzan Kadyrov’s support group as well , who is cooperation with this government. The construction of hydropower plant is in their field of interests, as this will facilitate the process of future motor road, connecting Russia with Pankisi. Local Kists (Chechens) also oppose the construction of this road for fear of Kadyrov .