{"id":5775,"date":"2026-06-02T13:04:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/?p=5775"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:06:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:06:41","slug":"the-government-is-dragging-the-country-back-to-the-darkest-years-of-soviet-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/2026\/06\/02\/the-government-is-dragging-the-country-back-to-the-darkest-years-of-soviet-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"The Government is dragging the country back to the darkest years of Soviet censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The &#8220;Georgian Dream&#8221; government has taken yet another step toward establishing authoritarianism in the country. A new department has been created within the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), tasked with &#8220;combating hate speech&#8221; and controlling citizens&#8217; freedom of expression in public spaces and on social media networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Handing over a censorship mandate to a law enforcement agency under the pretext of &#8220;combating hate speech&#8221; directly violates the Constitution of Georgia and the Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With this decision, the government is attempting to instill fear and self-censorship. This creates a severe risk of selective prosecution, where any sharp political criticism, humor, or satire expressed on social media can be deemed an &#8220;infraction.&#8221; From here, it is only a single step toward the censorship of media and artistic expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We firmly believe that disputes regarding freedom of expression belong strictly within the purview of an independent judiciary or media self-regulation bodies, not law enforcement structures. It is particularly cynical that this department is placed under the MIA\u2019s Human Rights Protection Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Free speech is one of the ultimate achievements of a free Georgia. Restricting it drags the country back to the darkest years of Soviet censorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The &#8220;Georgian Dream&#8221; government has taken yet another step toward establishing authoritarianism in the country. A new department&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-announcements","category-news","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5776,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5775\/revisions\/5776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pengeorgia.ge\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}