Journalists in Georgia have felt the heat during recent upheaval in the former soviet state. Here, Winston Bean tells of the conditions he and his colleagues have faced in recent days

Earlier this week, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili decreed a state of emergency after the violent dispersal of anti-government protests, ordering the shutdown of independent media outlets and deploying troops throughout the capital.

While the government’s crackdown succeeded in restoring order in a country still recovering from years of civil conflict, the ruling administration’s reputation for liberal reform has been irreparably damaged, as it enforces emergency rule and a news blackout at the same time a snap election campaign gets under way.

The anti-government rallies, organised by a tenuous coalition of 10 political opposition parties, began on 2 November with tens of thousands of Georgians calling for earlier parliamentary elections. They soon progressed to angry but peaceful demands for Saakashvili’s resignation.

The protests unravelled into bloody street battles across the capital’s centre on 7 November, as riot police moved in to break up the crowds with tear gas, rubber bullets and batons.

The president declared a state of emergency that evening, suspending the rights to assemble, strike and receive and disseminate information.

The government ordered television and radio stations, then airing live coverage of the rally and its breakup, to stop their news broadcasts.

The next day, the streets were calm but the air tense as hundreds of men in army fatigues kept watch in central Tbilisi.

Only the state-owned television station was broadcasting news updates, interspersed with content including combat footage from one of Georgia’s secessionist conflicts.

Other channels showed soap operas and movies, while Tbilisi residents found that BBC, CNN and Russian news broadcasts were unavailable on terrestrial cable.

Newspapers, not widely read, are still free to print. At least one of the bigger newspapers, however, temporarily closed down shop in an apparent precautionary measure.

Journalists reported being targeted in the crackdown on 7 November. When clashes first broke out between riot police and protesters that morning, a number of reporters and photographers suffered minor injuries.

Initially, police tried to confiscate or destroy camera equipment. During the afternoon’s relative lull, journalists were able to operate freely as riot police squared off with protesters on the city’s main avenue.

But with the violence continuing in Tbilisi, broadcast live and escalating, police pulled over a minibus full of local journalists heading to a constitutional law conference in the town of Batumi.

After asking the driver for his documents, the police let the minibus continue on—but not before finding out the passengers were journalists.

Fifteen minutes later, another set of police officers stopped them again. This time, they arrested the driver for unpaid fines, a charge he is contesting. The journalists were threatened with arrest after photographing the incident, then left on the side of the road as police confiscated the minibus.

The reporter who relayed the incident is convinced police stopped them because they were journalists. A student demonstration in Batumi, in reaction to the ongoing events in Tbilisi, was planned for later that day. She speculates police wanted to limit coverage of that demonstration, which was eventually broken up violently by spetznatz, the black ski-masked special forces troops.

There were reports of physical violence against journalists that evening, when the most aggressive dispersal of protesters brought an end to the rallies.

One reporter and his crew were caught between advancing columns of riot police. Two were injured by rubber bullets before being chased down a road by police officers. The reporter insists they saved their heads and their equipment only with the aid of a passing motorist.

And as riot police battled protesters among the churches and bridges of central Tbilisi, presenters at Imedi TV announced that spetznatz were storming their studio. They sat in tense silence for 20 seconds before the broadcast went dead.

The Imedi media group, viewed as unfriendly towards the government, was founded by Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. He ran the network until last week, when he handed over his controlling stake to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. He gave up control of the station, Patarkatsishvili said, so he could finance the opposition’s political campaign and still maintain the station’s objectivity.

Patarkatsishvili is now being charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government.

In an interview with BBC World Service, Imedi TV chief F Lewis Robertson said around two hundred special forces officers rushed into the television studio that evening without warning. They completely destroyed the control room equipment, he said, injuring several journalists and engineers with rubber bullets and batons.

The station’s destruction is especially concerning in light of Saakashvili’s decision to hold a snap presidential election on 5 January, announced in an apparent effort to quell the capital’s unrest and regain lost legitimacy with voters.

“I have decided to put your trust and my mandate to the test,” he told Georgians in a live address, carried by the state-owned broadcaster on 8 November.

There will also be a non-binding referendum on whether parliamentary elections should be moved forward.

Imedi TV’s prime competitor, Rustavi 2, is considered pro-government. Its anonymous ownership is rumoured to be tied to a top administration official.

Rustavi 2 remains on air, with a purely entertainment format. Only Imedi TV and a smaller broadcaster, Kavkasia, were shut down completely.

With the country beginning a two-month presidential campaign, the political opposition fear they will be hamstrung by the continuing media blackout and the loss of Imedi TV.

Speaking with AP in an article published 8 November, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch suggested it could be at least three months before Imedi TV resumes full operations—well past the election date.

Before this crisis, Georgian journalists enjoyed more freedom than colleagues in neighbouring countries.

Under ex-president Eduard Shevardnadze, ousted in the Western-supported and bloodless 2003 Rose Revolution which brought Saakashvili to power, news media were vibrant, diverse and often heavily critical of the government.

Media diversity dropped after the Rose revolution, in part because many newspapers belonged to the slew of small political parties which faded as Saakashvili’s National Movement won overwhelming political—and popular—dominance.

Any censorship since the Rose revolution was typically self-imposed. In a tiny, closely networked country with a meagre advertising industry, few media operators can afford to upset powerful figures they may need to do business with the next day.

Balanced and objective reporting, meanwhile, is a relatively new phenomenon here. Print articles in particular are routinely spiced with the reporter’s “analysis” of the situation, often mixing hearsay and opinion in a questionable cocktail.

With a major media network out for the count and newspapers sparsely read, Georgian voters will have difficulty finding information they trust even after the state of emergency is lifted.

As this report was being written, Georgia’s parliament voted to back a fifteen-day national emergency rule. Unless Saakashvili decrees otherwise, the media blackout will continue as he reruns for the presidency in hopes of repairing his tattered mandate.

Winston Bean is a journalist based in Tiblisi