Georgian Parliament Speaker: lawyers preparing response to BBC over contested report

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Friday said the Government has received a response from the BBC regarding a formal complaint, with Georgian lawyers preparing a follow-up reply.

In his remarks, Papuashvili noted that the BBC’s response, received a few days earlier, aligned exactly with its pre-complaint stance - no intention to reevaluate the journalists’ actions or the published material.

“We received a response from the BBC a few days ago. As expected, they had already expressed their position beforehand - they do not plan to reassess the work of their journalists, and the same stance is reflected in this reply. From the beginning, we said we would follow the procedures. Our lawyers are already working on a response, which, under the British legislation, will again be submitted to the BBC, challenging their position at the level of internal regulation”, he said.

The Speaker expressed no illusions about the BBC voluntarily admitting fault, particularly when supporting what Georgia considered falsifications.

“We did not have great expectations from the BBC - that when you support and publish such falsifications, you would then blame yourselves - so we are following all procedures. Experience tells us that wherever a foreign state or organisation has confronted Georgia, it has ultimately been defeated. So here too, you will see a bitter defeat”, Papuashvili concluded.

The complaint, filed by the ruling party Georgian Dream, demands that the BBC remove the material from relevant platforms and issue an apology.

The case concerns a BBC-produced documentary that accused the Georgian authorities of using a World War I-era banned chemical weapon, “Camite”, against demonstrators.

Georgia’s State Security Service has stated that the toxic substance “Camite” was not used by the Interior Ministry to disperse protests and that Georgia has never acquired such a substance.