{"id":2814,"date":"2017-12-19T14:50:41","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T14:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2017-12-21T15:01:50","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T15:01:50","slug":"case-continues-against-south-ossetian-journalist-accused-of-slandering-ruling-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/?p=2814","title":{"rendered":"Case Continues Against South Ossetian Journalist Accused of \u201cSlandering\u201d Ruling Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

By MAXIM EDWARDS
\n EurasiaNet<\/em><\/p>\n

A criminal case against one of South Ossetia’s leading civic activists and journalists is set to continue after a court rejected her appeal on charges of slander.<\/p>\n

The Akhalgori-based journalist Tamara Mearakishvili is charged with \u201cviolating the dignity and honor\u201d of the ruling United Ossetia party.<\/p>\n

On December 15, a court in the territory\u2019s de facto capital of Tskhinvali rejected an appeal<\/a> by Mearakishvili, against the first-instance ruling of \u201cslander\u201d (article 128 of the Russian criminal code, which is applied throughout the self-declared territory).<\/p>\n

The case has been going on since June, when a local leader of United Ossetia, Spartak Dryayev, brought the case to court<\/a>. Mearakishvili had long been a thorn in United Ossetia’s side, and the final straw for Dryayev appeared to be an article<\/a> published in Ekho Kavkaza on 26 April in which Mearakishvili was interviewed. She alleged that following the triumph of Anatoly Bibilov in the territory\u2019s presidential election, unnamed local officials from the victorious party had \u201cbehaved extremely unpleasantly,\u201d including harassing staff in local hospitals, from whom they demanded medical supplies.<\/p>\n

Mearakishvili was then detained on August 16. The following day, a criminal case was brought against her, and her house searched<\/a> for \u201cextremist literature.\u201d Upon approaching the authorities for clarification, the journalist\u2019s mother said she was not told the reasons for her daughter\u2019s arrest other than that she was \u201ca dangerous criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mearakishvili is a native of the Akhalgori region, known as Leningor to the South Ossetian authorities. Predominantly inhabited by ethnic Georgians, Akhalgori was occupied by South Ossetia following the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, and has been under Tskhinvali\u2019s control ever since. Mearakishvili, an ethnic Georgian who stayed on in the province after its occupation, has consistently raised awareness of the area\u2019s poor socioeconomic conditions and lack of prospects<\/a> in her writing.<\/p>\n

This case is hardly the first instance of intimidation against Mearakishvili, one of South Ossetia\u2019s few remaining critical journalists. In 2014, she was dismissed from her post<\/a> as director of the children\u2019s creative centre in Akhalgori.<\/p>\n

On June 8, she was dragged into a car by men in civilian clothes \u2014 allegedly members of South Ossetia\u2019s KGB. Mearakishvili was also informally questioned by the South Ossetian prosecutor\u2019s office at least six times in the second half of 2016. During questioning, prosecutors repeatedly expressed interest in the nature of her work with international media.<\/p>\n

Alongside her work for Ekho Kavkaza, Mearakishvili has contributed to a number of Georgian publications including Netgazeti. This year, she received an honorable mention<\/a> by the European Union\u2019s monitoring mission for her reports on the legacy of the conflict in Tskhinvali.<\/p>\n

The de-facto authorities simply needed a pretext for Mearakishvili’s arrest, wrote Murat Gukemukhov for RFE\/RL<\/a>, because she \u201craises extremely unpleasant topics for the district authorities and for Tskhinvali.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mearakishvili maintains that the charges against her are fundamentally impermissible, given that in the territory\u2019s legislation, only an individual can be the target of libel, not a political party. (In the offending interview, neither the names of officials, nor of any political party, were given.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no libel in my words, and [prosecutors] know that all too well,\u201d Mearakishvili said in a recent Facebook post, \u201cand that\u2019s why they\u2019re dragging out the period of investigation \u2014 according to law, they have up to two years to investigate the case. Meaning that 20 months are left until this \u2018investigation\u2019 ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mearakishvili\u2019s case has seen some limited international attention, including a brief statement by Amnesty International<\/a>. Georgian officials have voiced concern \u2014 public defender Ucha Nanuashvili released a statement<\/a> declaring that the case against Mearakishvili is designed to get her to leave South Ossetia forever.<\/p>\n

The South Ossetian authorities are unmoved; Murat Dzioyev, the territory\u2019s de facto minister for external relations, dismissed the Georgian reaction as \u201chysterical\u201d in an interview<\/a> with Sputnik Ossetia. As the case was an \u201cinternal affair\u201d, continued Dzioyev, there can be no grounds for its relevance in the international arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By MAXIM EDWARDS EurasiaNet A criminal case against one of South Ossetia’s leading civic activists and journalists is set to continue after a court rejected [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflicts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2816,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}