Decision

March 22, 2018


Head of Council: Giorgi Mgeladze

Member of Council: Maia Merkviladze, Lika Zakashvili, Nino Jafiashvili, Maia Mumlashvili, Giorgi Suladze

Applicant: Tornike Kakalashvili

Respondent: Giorgi Gabunia

Description part: 

Tornike Kakalashvili applied to the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. He thought that the broadcasting company Rustavi 2 show “Kurieri P.S” host Giorgi Gabunia violated the 7th principle of the charter. The applicant thought, that Giorgi Gabunia’s text when he evaluated the fact of Bidzina Ivanishvili buying trees and transporting them violated the principle.

Specifications of the case:

• It was decided to gather the opinions of council members distantly. According to the Charter regulation: “Council members can share their opinion on the case by any means/can participate in Council work via electronic communication tools (Social network, e-mail, online video and audio calls)”.

Motivation Part 

According to the 7th principle of the Charter: “Journalist should understand the danger of supporting discrimination; therefore he/she should use every possibility to avoid discriminating a person based on his/her race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other views, national or social origin or any other reason”. Applicant specified the text where Giorgi Gabunia says: “I think that Jesus Christ made a mistake coming to preach in Israel, 2000 years ago. He should have come in Adjaria in 2-3 years and then he could not have been crucified, because there would not have been any trees to make a cross out of. Bidzina would have had every tree replanted in his garden and Jesus would have lived a peaceful life until old age in Adjaria without trees. The main thing would have been to not have crossed paths with Bidzina or worse, started to preach in his garden. Then his life would have ended the same as 2000 years ago or worse.

Charter principle 7 includes not only classical idea of discrimination. This Principle is considered violated in cases, where a journalist uses hate speech or promotes the use of hate speech. Council thinks that principle 7 was not violated because, there was no distinction specified of a person in question; he was not put in an unequal situation; there was no hate speech used. Considering this, Council says that in 1997 recommendation of European Council Minister Committee, hate speech is defined as: hate speech includes all forms of expression which spread, support, encourage or approve of racial conflict, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of conflict including nationalism, ethnocentrism, discrimination and conflict with minorities and migrants. Therefore, hate speech should be directed towards a group and be derogatory, but not all derogatory speech is hate speech.

As applicant specified, Giorgi Gabunia’s text was Christian phobic and caused an outrage in religious people. Therefore, applicant thinks that hate speech was directed towards people with Christian faith. Council decided that hate speech can only be proved when a person is derogatory towards others based on certain characteristic, is discriminating others or supports stigmas and stereotypes. Council thinks that the text was directed not towards Christ and Christians, but Giorgi Gabunia was trying to criticize a public person – Bidzina Ivanishvili. His text was not negative towards Christian religion. He used, maybe not relevant comparison to criticize Bidzina Ivanishvili, but was not negative towards Christians. Maybe a religious person thinks that using Christ’s name is not approved in non-sacred way, but this does not automatically mean that it is offensive.

Resolution part

Based on the information above:

1. Giorgi Gabunia did not violate Charter principle 7.