Tariel Nakaidze vs Mediacity.ge

Complaint: The web portal Mediacity.ge published an interview with Tariel Nakaidze, the Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Muslims’ Unionon August 2, 2014. According to the Nakaidze, an interview represented free interpretation of his comments by the journalist; the phrases were cut from the context, also published version of the interview did not actually reflect histelephone comments and thus violated Articles 1 (accuracy) of the Charter. According to the respondent, the Articles 7 of the Charter linked with the discrimination was violated as well.

Tariel Nakaidze, whose interests were advocated by Media Development Foundation, filed a complaint against the web portal to the Charter of Journalistic Ethics on August 14.

According to complainant the journalist's approach to discuss the issue of building a mosque in the context of reciprocity (Natia Vasadze: Turkish side has changed its decision as well; does it ask to construct a mosque in exchange for the restoration of the Georgian monuments?), as well as the asked question "Do you forget that the Christianity is declared as the state religion in Georgia? – were discriminatory, as they were inconsistent with the fundamental principle of equality and represented the Georgian Muslims as second rate citizens.

The respondent's appeal to the editorial about correcting the inaccuracies, which was followed by manifestation of hate speech toward Muslims in social networks, was left without response, which violated the Article 5, according to which "Media is responsible to correct inaccuracy, whichmisleads the public”.

Author of the complaint argued that media outlet violated Articles 1, 5, 7 and 11 of the Charter. The complainant also underlined the risks, which could be provoked by the discriminatory coverage of religious issues in confrontational manner and focused on the responsibility of journalists and the media in this process.

Decision: On December 16 the Charter of Journalistic Ethics satisfied the compliant of Tariel Nakaidze.

Motivation: According to the decision of Charter of Journalistic Ethics the web portal violated the Article 1 (accuracy), 5 (correcting inaccuracy) and 7 (discrimination) of the Charter. During discussions the editorial of Mediacity.ge presented transcript of the audio recording, which proved the inaccuracies between the published version on the web page and the actual comment made by Tariel Nakaidze.