Freedom of Religion in Georgia - Censorship in The Media

Censorship in The Media

A controversy arose in January 2009 over a Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) television program, Sakartvelos Didi Ateuli (საქართველოს დიდი ათეული; "Best Georgians" or "Great Ten Georgians") — a show which invited viewers to pick Georgia's top historical personages through polling by telephone, text messaging, and the Internet. Officials of the Georgian Orthodox Church publicly objected to the inclusion of both religious and secular figures in the competition (the January 2009 short list of 50 candidates included 13 saints), as well as to the idea of having viewers put saints in rank order. The issue may have been compounded by the general practice within Orthodox Christianity of recognizing many monarchs and other prominent secular individuals as being saints.

On January 16, the regular airing of Didi Ateuli was replaced by a debate between church representatives, their supporters, and opponents of the church's position. During the show, the chairman of the GPB board of trustees, Levan Gakheladze, announced that a divided board had voted to suspend the show pending further consideration. Comments from trustees and critics revealed deep divisions between supporters and opponents of the church's stance — some decrying church interference, others saying they could not ignore insistences from church leaders, and one board member stating that "The opinion of is more important for me than the law."

On January 22, GPB announced that Didi Ateuli would proceed, with both saints and secular figures retained in the competition, but that the final list of ten would not be ranked but would be announced in alphabetical order. The final published list did, however, show the vote totals. A statement released by the Georgian Orthodox Church attempted to downplay the controversy as "artificial", suggesting that "someone wants to portray the Church as a censor" in order to dissuade church officials from speaking out on future issues.