"You extort money from people. You don't think about Georgia, you don't care about the people. All you care about is making money with this coverage. You are exploiting rural people. That's the kind of man you are... you should not be allowed into Khevsureti," Tariel Chikhashvili, head of the Dusheti Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, accused Gela Mtivlishvili, the editor of Mountain Stories, of committing a crime while performing professional duty.
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Extortion is punishable under Article 181 of the Civil Code and is subject to two to four years of imprisonment.
According to the police code of ethics, a police officer should be respectful, should not display rudeness and violence towards members of the public, and should refrain from offensive and discriminatory behavior. A police officer must maintain an objective attitude.
Under the Criminal Code, failure to report a crime is also punishable - or indifference to duty, in the case of civil servants, that means s/he had or has information about a crime but does not report it to a relevant body, thus violating the legal interests of the state.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs refuses to answer the question of Mountain Stories regarding journalist Gela Mtivlishvili, of whether there is any complaint or statement filed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding money extortion, and whether an investigation is ongoing.
Mountain Stories calls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs to publicly refute the unsubstantiated and insulting accusation, which deliberately damaged the dignity and honor of journalist Gela Mtivlishvili, as well as the reputation of Mountain Stories.
On September 9, the journalist was there to cover the second protest rally held by the residents of the unelectrified borderline villages of Khevsureti. At the Roshka River Bridge, where the rally was supposed to take place, there were many more policemen mobilized than the participants of the rally. The policemen tried to stop the people who wanted to participate in the gathering under the pretext of an expected rockfall and blocked the road with cars at the Arkhot turn. In fact, from Barisakho to Roshka Bridge, where the rally was supposed to take place, there was no sign of a rockfall.
In more than 20 villages of Khevsureti, people live by lamp light. As a result of the journalistic investigation, Mountain Stories revealed that while the people left in the empty villages of Khevsureti do not have electricity, large cryptocurrency farms were set up in newly built hydroelectric power plants by former high-ranking officials in Roshka Valley.
Mountain Stories is in a legal dispute with the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia because the Ministry is not releasing public information - why the actual power output of many newly built dams falls behind the originally planned numbers by 20, 30, and even 40%. Mountain Stories is requesting various documents from the agency. After the publication of the report on the arrangement of large cryptocurrency farms in HPPs, the Ministry of Economy was forced to fine the company of former high-ranking officials with 30 thousand GEL, and in hydroelectric power stations, cryptocurrency farms were dismantled and the generated electricity is now supplied to the state system.
They attacked the editor of Mountain Stories with threats, similar to the slanderous and insulting statements made by the senior official of the Dusheti Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while covering the natural disaster that happened in Racha's Shovi resort.
Georgian Dream's aggression campaign against Mountain Stories threatens the physical integrity and professional activity of our journalists. Unsubstantiated and irresponsible statements of the Speaker of the Parliament, the Leader of the Parliamentary Majority, and other public figures encourage dangerous forms of violence.
