On 6 October, the management of the Georgian Public Broadcaster removed independent opposition politician and civic activist Theona Chalidze from a pre-arranged programme on Georgian Radio, and the programme was ultimately not aired at all.

Before she was refused participation in the pre-planned and agreed programme, Theona Chalidze had been attending a rally in support of prisoner Giorgi Davitadze outside the Public Broadcaster’s building. She also displayed protest banners in the broadcaster’s yard reading: “No to torture!” and “Give airtime to prisoners’ parents.”

The activist says that she was supposed to speak on the Public Broadcaster’s radio programme about problems in the penitentiary system. According to her, both the topic and her participation had been agreed with the programme host the previous day.

Chalidze recalls that when she arrived for the programme, she met the Chair of the Public Broadcaster’s Board of Trustees, Vasil Maghlaperidze, in the building’s lobby. According to her, Maghlaperidze said he had no intention of communicating with the organizers of the rallies or fulfilling demands raised through protests. “When we finished the conversation, he took a few steps and told the programme producer: ‘She is organizing a protest against you and you are inviting her on air?’” Chalidze recalls.

After this, she was told that she was blocked from appearing as a guest on the Public Broadcaster’s radio programme and was turned away.