H. E. Mikheil Saakashvili
President of Georgia
Ingorovas 7
Tbilisi
Georgia

Fax: +995 32 99 08 79 / +995 32 98 72 62

Vienna, 2 August 2004

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors,
media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, is deeply
concerned about the recent police raid on the independent weekly newspaper,
The Georgian Times.

According to information before IPI, finance police officers raided the
Tbilisi office of The Georgian Times on 14 July without a proper search
warrant in order to confiscate accounting documents of the Georgian Times
Media Holding. The police officers involved claimed there had been financial
irregularities at the company.

Responding to this allegation, The Georgian Times' management maintains that
the raid, which briefly halted work at the newspaper, is part of a
deliberate campaign to exert pressure on the newspaper.

The weekly recently published a series of articles questioning the origin of
assets belonging to the Tbilisi chief prosecutor, Valery Grigalashvili. In a
14 July statement, The Georgian Times wrote that in private conversations
with the newspaper staff, Grigalashvili said he would force the newspaper to
close, if it did not stop publishing material about him.

IPI would like to remind Your Excellency that newspapers have a fundamental
right to report on legitimate matters of public interest, including the
origin of assets allegedly held by Grigalashvili. Any attempt to prevent the
media from doing so is not only a disruption of the free flow of information
in Georgia, but also a breach of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which states everyone has the right to "seek,
receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers."

With the above in mind, IPI urges Your Excellency to authorise a thorough
investigation into this incident and to do everything in your power to
create a media environment that allows journalists to exercise their
profession free of harassment.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director

International Press Institute (IPI)
Spiegelgasse 2/29
A-1010 Vienna
Austria
Tel: + 431-512 90 11
Fax: + 431-512 90 14
E-mail: ipi@freemedia.at
http://www.freemedia.at

IPI, the global network of editors, media executives and leading
journalists, is dedicated to the furtherance and safeguarding of press
freedom, the protection of freedom of opinion and expression, the promotion
of the free flow of news and information, and the improvement of the
practices of journalism.

IAGJ is the member of International Federation of Journalists