Tbilisi. The Center for Training and Consultancy publishes a work of Tamar Meskhi: “11 Georgian stories from Chernobyl”, which refers to the Georgian liquidators of the Chernobyl results..  “There are gathered stories of Georgians working at the site of the Chernobyl disaster in the collection. Read how Georgian “liquidators” lived in the radiation zone, what lifestyles they had, what memories about the site of the disaster they have, and how they live today”. See the collection in full... Source: The website of the organization in a social network

Tbilisi. Material of Mariam Nebieridze, a student of the Myth Detector Laboratory, may let you know who disseminates the conspiracy, as if the program created in 1980 was preparing Georgia for the 2020 pandemic. “On October 7, Lasha Modebadze, a fake account, shared a post in a public group “Coronamafia and Georgia as an experimental country”, which was related to information released by the US Embassy in regard to the South Caucasus Regional Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program. According to the post, the program was preparing Georgia for the pandemic in advance.  The Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program (FELTP), organized by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has been operating since 1980 and involves more than 80 countries. The statement, as if the program created in 1980 was preparing Georgia for the 2020 pandemic, is a conspiracy theory”, - is noted in the blog post. Read more…  Source:www.mythdetector.ge

Tbilisi. In September 2020 in the frames of COVID-19 response activities GRCS with the USAID support refresher trainings, jointly elaborated with NCDC on COVID-19 for local staff and volunteers were conducted in 33 GRCS branches. The trainings aimed at refreshing knowledge of GRCS local staff and volunteers on COVID-19, ways of transmission and personal safety, including usage of personal safety equipment, social stigma, and risk communication in 33 GRCS branches. Read more… Source: The organization’s page in the social network

Tbilisi. On October 8, 2020, the Public Defender's Office of Georgia organized an online meeting on the theme: "Human Rights Defenders and the Challenges Faced by Them". “Public Defender Nino Lomjaria, Deputy Prosecutor General Natia Merebashvili, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Nino Tsatsiashvili, Chairman of the Board of the Tbilisi Human Rights House Baia Pataraia, as well as representatives of state agencies and non-governmental organizations, took part in the event. Representatives of non-governmental organizations highlighted the necessity of raising public awareness of human rights and the unfortunate trend of criminal actions and discrediting campaigns against human rights defenders in recent years, as well as the obligations of the state in this regard”. Read more… Source: ombudsman.ge

Tbilisi. Within the framework of an online lecture, Anton Vacharadze, Head of Memory and Disinformation Studies Direction and Megi Kartsivadze, an analyst at the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) talked about the topic: Russian propaganda: From empire to modernity. Watch a video recording of the online lecture at the link: Source: The webpage of the organization in a social network

Tbilisi. The Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics expresses its concern in regard to a verbal abuse of a journalist of an online publication “Batumelebi” committed by Jumber Vardmanidze, Mayor of Khelvachauri. “According to disseminated information, Mayor got irritated after a journalist asked a question related to usage of an official vehicle of Mayor to attend pre-election meetings. He verbally insulted and brutally swore the journalist right after he heard the question. The Charter considers it important to respond immediately to such cases so as to ensure that the syndrome of impunity does not become contagious to other public figures”. Read more… Source: www.qartia.ge

Tbilisi. The Public Defender welcomes the changes made in the labour legislation and hopes that their implementation will significantly contribute to the prevention of violations of labour rights. “Several laws regulating important issues of labour legislation were adopted on September 29, 2020. The establishment of a labour inspection mechanism, which enjoys a full mandate and will be authorized from January 1, 2021 to oversee the protection of the labour law, including by inspecting workplaces and effectively responding to the violations of labour rights, is particularly worth noting. The Public Defender has been stressing the need for such a mechanism in her annual reports and public statements for years. Unfortunately, the Public Defender's proposal to limit the mandate of the Labour Inspection Service to the assessment of the general policy of equality in the workplace and to introduce a mechanism of referring individual cases of alleged discrimination to the Public Defender has not been taken into account”. Read more… Source: ombudsman.ge

Tbilisi. Mariam Topchishvili, a member of the regional network of the Myth Detector Laboratory, gathered the coronavirus related lies and manipulations disseminated in the “Stop 5G Georgia” group. Read more… Source:www.mythdetector.ge

Local Democracy Agency Georgia is holding an agrotour complying with national regulations within the framework of the grant “Racha-Lechkhumi and lower Svaneti Regional Development Initiative”. „This time the farmers from Lentekhi municipality have visited following successful enterprises in Ambrolauri and Oni municipalities: The farm and ham plant of “Blauenstein Georgia”; Honey processing plant in Ambrolauri; Dried fruit processing plant in Ambrolauri. The farmers got information about honey processing methods, the technology of producing different types of ham and dried fruit“. Read more… Source: The organization’s page in the social network

Imereti. During the week dedicated to the International Day of Older Persons, members of the home care team of the Georgia Red Cross Society Samtredia branch delivered food and hygiene parcels to the older people. Along with the congratulations, the beneficiaries were provided with COVID-19-related information and recommendation leaflets. Read more… Source: The organization’s page in the social network

Tbilisi. Civil society organizations, operating in Georgia, appeal to the Government of Georgia and its relevant agencies, as well as international organizations and diplomatic corps, and urge them to take all appropriate measures under their mandate to protect the life, safety and rights of Irakli Bebua, detained in occupied Abkhazia, as well as to facilitate the process of his transfer to the Georgian-controlled territory. Read more… Source:emc.org.ge

Tbilisi. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center consider that the established vision of judicial reform needs to be changed. “On October 8, the Venice Commission published its opinions about latest legislative changes in regard to composition of the Supreme Court. Although an evaluation of the project was requested by the Parliament itself, it did not wait for the report and approved the draft on September 30. As it was expected, this hasty step of the legislative body was negatively appraised as by the Venice Commission itself, as well as by the European Union and co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of Georgia. It is clear to us that effectiveness of a management system, based on the principle of majority (majoritarianism), serves only to increase injustice and enhance existing centers of power. Therefore, we see the solution in arranging inclusive, consensus-oriented decision-making mechanisms”, - is noted in the statement. Read more… Source:gyla.ge

Tbilisi. The Civil Society Institute has published a guide for social enterprises and non-entrepreneurial legal entities.  Legislative acts of Georgia do not recognize such terms as a social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, however, there are entities that operate in Georgia and carry out social entrepreneurship. Interested people have the opportunity to carry out social entrepreneurship both via setting up a legal entity under private law and taking into account an established international experience. A social enterprise refers to those legal entities under private law that are functionally considered to be social enterprises and economic activities of which imply primarily the achievement of social goals. According to the legislation of Georgia, civil society organizations, which are meant to be non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) legal entities, along with their main activity are authorized to perform any activity that is not prohibited by law, including an ancillary entrepreneurial activity. As a matter of fact, an ancillary entrepreneurial activity may or may not be that of a social entrepreneurial nature. This guide is intended for both social entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) legal entities.  The guide covers issues related to legal management, financial accounting-accountability, and tax administration of legal entities under private law.  The guide is developed by the Civil Society Institute (authors: Levan Paniashvili, Chief Lawyer of the Institute, Davit Tivishvili, Financial Manager of the Institute) in collaboration with Social Enterprise Alliance and with the support of the International Center for Non-for-Profit Law (ICNL). Guide... 

Tbilisi. ISFED mobile app is up and running. Download here: iOS… Android... ISFED mobile app is bilingual and targets every interested person who wants to receive information and notifications about the election process, pre-election monitoring, ISFED's election day activities etc. App users will also be able to report incidents. Read more… Source: The organization’s page in the social network

Tbilisi. On October 9, there were conducted a presentation of a 10-point concept of judicial system reform and a signing ceremony, initiated by non-governmental organizations. “The concept was developed taking into consideration observations and studies of a number of years of the non-governmental sector. It aims at functional and systemic improvement of judicial system, enhancement of independence of judges and introduction of democratic mechanisms of internal governance. The document was signed by 8 political subjects, thus pledging to implement reforms given in the concept as soon as the new parliament is convened after the 2020 parliamentary elections. At the same time, it should be noted that the concept does not require constitutional changes”. Read more… Source: transparency.ge

The European Court of Justice, Europe’s highest court, has ruled that ‘lex CEU’ violates Hungary’s commitments under the WTO, and infringes the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union relating to academic freedom. The judgment from the European Court of Justice in Commission v Hungary (C-66/18) related to the Hungarian law amending the 2017 Law on higher education. The Court agreed with the European Commission that Hungary has breached WTO law, EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union “relating to academic freedom, the freedom to found higher education institutions and the freedom to conduct a business.” Today’s decision means that Lex CEU is no longer applicable. CEU is free to operate its US degree programs in Budapest. It is also an important moral and legal victory as well as a historic victory for academic freedom in Europe. Read more... Source: www.ceu.edu

Tbilisi. Civil society organizations of Georgia respond to the fact of detention of Iveri Melashvili and Natalia Ilychova, former members of the Border Delimitation and Demarcation Commission of the Government, by the Office of Prosecutor General on October 7. “We consider that the time of launching the investigation, the pre-election context, signs of selective approach during the investigation process and populist statements, made by leaders of the ruling party violating the presumption of innocence, raise suspicion that the investigation serves political motivations and aim at misleading citizens of Georgia as well as discrediting political opponents”. Read more… Source: transparency.ge

Tbilisi. Green Alternative considers it illegal to build a park on the territory of the former hippodrome without consulting the public and proper evaluation. “It should be noted that the Tbilisi City Hall already violated requirements of the legislation of Georgia when it initially made the most important decision for the environment of the city and residents of Tbilisi, and only then informed public about it. The City Hall thus violated requirements of the Aarhus Convention, which states that participation of the public should be ensured at an early stage when options are open and the public has the opportunity to participate in it effectively; while the results of public participation should be paid due attention. We call on the Tbilisi City Hall to comply with requirements of the legislation of Georgia and to not start illegal works on the territory of former hippodrome”. Read more… Source: greenalt.org

Shida Kartli. The Gori office of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association defended 2 people who were unlawfully dismissed from the Akhaltsikhe Municipality Assembly as a result of merging of the local self-government community and the city in 2017. “Both of them worked at the Akhaltsikhe Municipality Assembly for years before the reorganization of the self-government. They got dismissed while their positions were not abolished as a result of the reorganization. By the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia, orders on dismissal were annulled, while the defendant was imposed to reinstate dismissed employees to the similar position and pay a compensation for the lost remuneration”. Read more… Source:gyla.ge

Tbilisi. Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) publishes an article of Mariam Shalvashvili: Muslim women of highland Adjara. “The purpose of this two-part article is, on the one hand, to emphasize that Islam is an integral part of daily life in Adjara and to show its importance. While on the other hand, to prevent conversion of all aspects of life to and their explanation by religion, therefore, dominant discourse challenge, prevalent in the West, is the main line of articles. These articles are an attempt to provide a little more knowledge about the Adjara region and Muslim Adjarians - to describe conditions, in which highland Adjara resident women live: unequal economic situation, tough working conditions, inaccessibility to health and education, as well as isolation characteristic of a geographic and cultural periphery, besides, to show how agency of Muslim women is manifested”. Read more… Source:emc.org.ge

The web portal CsoGeorgia.org releases a weekly newsletter of grants competition, contests, vacancies, fellowships and tenders for civil society organizations and for any interested person. Newsletter...

Tbilisi. On Behalf of CDD Deputy Head of the Election Observation mission - Paata Kvavadze participated in a special working group - the initiative of the Central Election Commission (CEC) to discuss the voting of Georgian citizens who are in quarantine, as well as the voting of Covid-19 infected people who are in special facilities. Read more… Source: the organization’s page in the social network