Month: June 2026

Fourteen employees, including journalists, have been dismissed from Adjara public broadcaster as part of the reorganization process launched earlier in the spring, in what the dismissed workers describe as a move to silence critical voices.

“On June 2, 14 employees of Adjara Public Broadcaster were notified by management via email that their employment contracts had been terminated,” Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, a media self-regulation watchdog, said on June 2, calling the move “unfair and unfounded.” According to the watchdog, among those dismissed are Irina Kurua, the host of the program “Satskmeli,” radio news program editor Maia Merkviladze, and journalists Teona Kharabadze, Levan Uridia, and Salome Gegeshidze.

Irakli Kikvadze, who was elected as the broadcaster director in January, told MediaChecker, a Georgian press platform, that the broadcaster “had to bid farewell to several employees” as part of the reorganization process.

“At this stage, due to infrastructural and other reasons, we had to cancel many programs. We also have future plans in this direction, and people will be given the opportunity to use airtime when conditions allow for it,” Kikvadze told MediaChecker.

The dismissals follow years of concerns expressed by current and former staffers about a restrictive editorial environment at Adjara TV, and come amid a reorganization and relocation process, launched earlier this spring by the broadcaster’s management, which cited engineering assessments finding the broadcaster’s headquarters to be structurally unsafe. As part of the process, management announced the temporary suspension of all programs except news digests, prompting uncertainty and fears that the move could be used to shut down critical programs and sideline journalists.

Irina Kurua, one of the dismissed journalists, described the decision as expected, arguing that critical voices within the broadcaster had increasingly come under pressure.

“I knew exactly that such a decision would be made,” Kurua told Formula TV. She said that the program she hosted “was one of the very few remaining spaces […] where different opinions, critical views, and critical questions could still be expressed,” and called the process “a continuation of the wave that Adjara TV has experienced, when critically minded journalists and authors of critical questions were gradually restricted in their workspace, demoted as a form of punishment, or dismissed altogether.”

Also Read:

• 27/04/2023 – Court Finds Dismissal of Adjara TV Host Illegal
• 25/07/2022 – Court Partly Satisfies Former Adjara TV Head in Dismissal Case
• 02/09/2020 – Public Defender Addresses UN, OSCE Representatives Regarding Adjara TV
• 06/08/2020 – Three Dismissed Employees Reinstated in Adjara TV, Albeit on Other Positions