Sunday, September 07, 2008

Occupying Russian soldiers detain and abuse Georgian journalists

Grani reports that

Russian soldiers in the village of Tsaishi in Georgia's Zugdidi district detained Giga Kilasonia, a cameraman for the Obshchestvenny Veshchatel television channel, and Rustavi-2 television reporter Emma Gogokhia, who were trying to film illegal Russian military checkpoints in Tsaishi, gazeta.ru reports, citing its Tbilisi correspondent.

... "While the journalists were filming, three armoured personnel carriers arrived, and the Russian soldiers told them to stop what they were doing. They took away the keys of the cameraman's car, and tried to force both journalists into one of the APCs. When the journalists refused, the soldiers roughed them up. 40 minutes later, representatives of the UN mission arrived on the scene, and after their intervention the journalists were released."

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