The Democracy Research Institute continues the study of the far-right discourse in Georgia. In October, 15 far-right groups and Facebook pages of their leaders were defined as the research objects. Besides, the Democracy Research Institute was also conducting monitoring of nine online editions. Within the framework of the research, the principal tendencies of far-right rhetoric in Georgia was identified. 

Media monitoring conducted in October once more confirmed that the far-right groups and leaders in Georgia actively use the platform of online media and social networks for voicing their ideas and attracting the followers.

Sharply sexist

Far-right rhetoric in October, compared with the previous months, was characterized by sharply antifeminist and sexist messages. On October 5^th Ilia Jishkariani - the member of the City Assembly from “Georgian Dream” was accused of the sexual oppression and attempt of rape by his employee. Later Tamta Todadze by the investigation agencies was recognized as victim. In response to this, the campaign to discredit Tamta Todadze was started, in which the far-right Facebook pages “Anti-Paradox”, “Cardhu”, “geo pepe” and “Georgian page” were actively engaged. Mentioned pages spread several messages of different content. The main purpose of these messages were the protection of the member of the City Assembly and accordingly, discrediting of Tamta Todadze.

Identical information against Tamta Todadze was also spread by media outlets loyal to the government, such as Information Agency Pirveli and Plus.kvira.ge that raise questions about far-right groups’ possible links to the government team.

Pro-Russian

Sharply pro-Russian editorial policy of “Sputnik Georgia”, “Sakinform”, “Georgia and World” and “Alt-Info” was noticeable in October as well. Concurrently, these media outlets actively discredited the West, including by means of distortion of facts.[1]

Armenophobic messages and the Russian trace 

In October the web-edition “Kavkaz Plus” spread sharply armenophobic messages. It is substantial that in a complete majority of the articles Russian-language and propagandistic editions such as “Sputnik”, “regnum.ru” and “aif.ru” were mentioned as the original sources. The edition, relying only on its own representations, completely groundlessly concluded on the interests of Armenia in Samtskhe-Javakheti and saw the danger of aggression and support of separatism beyond the necessity to repair Bavra-Ninotsminda road.

The monitoring was possible with the financial support of the Embassy of the Netherlands in the framework of the project "Understanding and Combating Far-Right Extremism and Ultra-Nationalism in Georgia”.

[1] On October 10^th on “Alt-Info” page was published the article on Matthew Bryza, the former high ranking official of the US Department of State, speaking about the final loss of the territories on the part of Georgia. “Matthew Bryza: Russia will never leave from there” we read right in the title of the article. Matthew Bryza’s these words were taken from the interview given to the Ukrainian TV channel “Espreso” on October 8^th. “Alt-Info” and “Sakinform” distorted the facts and used the quotation taken out of the context.