Georgia

Georgian government "trying to gain favour with Orthodox Church"

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:57:38 +0100

When a prank video clip of Patriarch Ilia II (an important high Orthodox priest in Georgia) sounding off about President Mikheil Saakashvili emerged on YouTube on October 13, the nation was outraged. But so to was the government. As one of our Observers in Tbilisi explains, their strong reaction only highlights their weakness alongside the Orthodox Church.

On the same day that it was posted on YouTube, the video was picked up by Tea Tutberidze, an anarchist analyst from liberal think-tank Liberty, and posted on her Facebook page . Brought to the attention of the national media, the reaction was explosive. Many believed it to be a sneaky message from the authorities in response to comments made by Patriarch Ilia II a week earlier, when he criticised President Saakashvili for going to war with Russia in 2008.

However, the government immediately condemned the prank, and within just eight days had orchestrated the set up of an NGO called ‘Movement in Defence of our Honour'. Its sole purpose: "to defend the Patriarch's reputation". They also called in a number of people for questioning, including Ms Tutberidze, although she claimed to have posted the video as a way of denouncing it.

Twitter under cyber attack, Russia suspected

Ségolène F24 — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:25:29 +0200

Twitter came under an unprecedented cyber-attack on Thursday night, which blocked some 17 million subscribers from accessing the micro-blogging platform. Clues on the origins of the attack suggest the Russian-Georgian conflict may have spilled over into the social networking site.

It was 6:00am, California time, when the cyber-pirates launched their offensive on Twitter. This type of attack is called a DoS - a Denial of Service. It is meant to cripple a site by multiplying connection requests from computers infected with a virus.

The virtual-community website Facebook was also affected by the attack. Some Facebook users noticed unusually slow connections. The company assured subscribers that no personal data was stolen or modified. A few hours later the two sites returned to normal activity.

According to some bloggers the attack was caused by massive sending of spam via false identities, a technique called "Joe Jobbing". Le Monde's website claimed that the spam was sent by a pro-independence militant from Abkhazia, a territory whose sovereignty has only been recognised by Moscow.

The onslaught reportedly struck a Georgian blogger too, just one year after the armed conflict that pitted his country against Russia. His various accounts - Twittter, Facebook, Livejournal and Google Blogger - were all hacked.

Hunting the homo – the game infuriating gay rights activists

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:40:31 +0200

A video game hosted by a Georgian website is causing outrage in the gay rights community. The idea of the online game - to shoot nudists, before they b**ger you, was created by a Frenchman. It's banned in France... but not in Georgia.

The game (available here), was initially picked up and slated by the Gay Caucasus blog, shortly followed by Gay Armenia. Global Voices quoted the latter as being "completely disgusted", finding it particularly shocking that the concept was adopted by "those religious-minded people in Tbilisi, Georgia, who swear in the name of Georgian patriarchy and constantly cite Bible to ‘justify' their homophobia and hatred. Is this their (un-)‘orthodox' way of bringing up children by creating an image of an enemy (= gays) and teaching how to deal with it (= kill them)?"

Georgia doesn’t want to 'put in' at the Eurovision in Moscow

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:42:48 +0100

Georgia is using this year's Eurovision song contest as an opportunity to poke fun at Russia. Not difficult to get their little joke, with a song entitled "We don't wanna put in".

After Russia's heavy-handed offensive on Georgia during their conflict last August, the southern neighbour and ex-Soviet state had decided to boycott this year's contest, hosted by Moscow in May. But now they've come up with a better idea - to turn up in Moscow and sing a disco tune comprising the lyrics "We don't wanna put in/ The negative move/ It's killin' the groove". While it's been received by Europeans as a light-hearted jibe, the gesture is unlikely to go down well with the Russian prime minister.

The performance was filmed on Wednesday night at Georgia's final, when the group, Stephane & 3G, were voted official contestants.

Despite the fact that political content is banned from the contest, this isn't the first time that Eurovision has been used for political gripes between contesting countries. In 1978 Jordan refused to broadcast the Israeli entry, instead airing pictures of flowers. Israel ending up winning, so the transmission was cut and the Jordanian media announced that runners-up Belgium had come first. When Lebanon planned to do the same thing in 2005, they were forced to withdraw for planning to breach the contest rules.

In 2007, it was Israel's turn to squeeze a political message into their entry's lyrics; this time aimed at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his nuclear plans. "Push the Button", talked of "crazy leaders in the world who are trying to trick us" and went on to say "I wanna have a lot of fun, just sitting in the sun, but nevertheless, he's gonna push the button". Then there was Spain's 2008 entry "Baila el Chiki Chiki", which was forced to remove references made to the King of Spain's infamous "why don't you shut up?" remark at Hugo Chavez.

The dark side of South Ossetia

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:34:19 +0200

Just after Russian forces stormed the South Ossetian capital, celebrated Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who grew up in Ossetia, gave a concert to honour the victory. Our Observer there managed to photograph the event with his mobile.

Gergiev gave the concert in Tskhinvali on 21 August. At the same time, the capital of South Ossetia lay in ruins, and Russian troops were rumoured to be carrying out ethnic cleansing just kilometres away from the scene. The conductor arrived on stage with a group of children. In his speech, which was aired live on Russian TV, he condemned Georgia for carrying out a genocide.

A few metres from the concert, Georgian hostages watched the event from the barracks they were being held in. Our Observer managed to access this zone, prohibited to journalists, and take these pictures with his phone. In the foreground you can see the Georgian hostages, and in the back, Gergiev's concert.

Russian blog review: "Looking for nuclear war? Bring it on!"

Ségolène Team Observers — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:20:27 +0200

A photomontage circulating on russian blogs.The crater is on Poland.

The Georgian War and the subsequent missile defense deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic have stirred up Russian bloggers. Many vent their frustration through hawkish comments and nostalgia of Soviet military might.

Picture posted by Stanislav "Afrikanych" Ulyanov.

Writing above: "Our Policy". Writing below: "NATO"

"I want Russians to leave my town"

Ségolène Team Observers — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:09:03 +0200

While the international community waits for Russian troops to complete their withdrawal of Georgia, our Observer in the field tells us that the army is in fact consolidating its position around Poti, her town. According to her, its citizens have begun protesting against this occupation.

"I was in Gori when the Russians attacked"

Julien — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:37:24 +0200

Leli Blagonravova, a Georgian photoreporter, was in Gori on August 8-9 when the Russians attacked. She sent us her personal account and some of her photos. WARNING: some of the photos are graphic.

From Poti, a town under Russian occupation

Julien — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:13:26 +0200

We managed to make contact with our Observer in Poti, blogger Samira Kuznetsova. She tells us about the atmosphere in Poti, a Georgian port on the Black Sea occupied by Russian forces. According to her, and contrary to rumours, the Russians did not loot the town.

A humanitarian mission of the US Navy could be docking in Poti in the coming days.

Amateur video from Poti

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:07:13 +0200

Despite the EU coordinated ceasefire, two Georgian towns - Gori (20km south of South Ossetia) and Poti (on the west coast) - remain under occupation by Russian forces. Few images are coming out of the areas, which journalists are not allowed to enter. Bloggers and NGO members however are doing their best to get around the information blockade by putting photos and videos online.

Communicating with these occupied towns is extremely difficult. There is no press access and communication by phone is almost impossible. We phoned the contributors to this post several times, without being able to get a clear connection.