MDF, GDI, TDI vs. Guria news

Complaint: On August 8, 2015 news portal Guria News published Turkophobic article "Turkish Cultural Expansion Continues" by Giorgi Gachechiladze.

On August 18 Media Development Foundation - MDF, Georgian Democracy Initiative - GDI and Tolerance and Diversity Institute -TDI initiated a complaintto the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics against the news portal.

The authors of the compliant believed, that the article "Turkish Cultural Expansion Continues" was of Turkophobic nature and stirs intolerance. Complainants argued that Instead of presenting review of the soup operas and their cultural values, author discriminated on the ethnic and geographic grounds, which was aggravated by unjustified contextualization of historical events in modern days.

The NGO-s made disputable the issue of breaching paragraph 7 of the Charter of Journalistic Ethics, which states that "Journalists must understand the dangers of encouraging discrimination on the part of the media; therefore, he/she must exert every effort to avoid discrimination of any person on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political and other opinion, national or social origin, or any other grounds".

Decision: At the hearing held on September 5, 2015, the Charter of Journalistic Ethics upheld complaint.

Motivation: The Charter shared opinion of NGOs and established that by publishing the article "Turkish Cultural Expansion Continues"Guria News breached paragraph 7 of the Charter of Journalistic Ethics.

Response: After publishing the Charter's decision, the editorial of Guria News removed the article from the website.