Giorgi Gabunia, Director General of Mtavari Arkhi, said that Zaza Okuashvili [one of the shareholders] has decided “to take action seemingly aligned with Bidzina Ivanishvili’s interests” by attempting to shut down the TV channel.

“At a time when Georgian people are fighting in the streets to defend their rights and remove an illegitimate government when protesters are openly being subjected to violence, brutally tortured, robbed, illegally detained, prosecuted, and thrown into prisons, and when journalists at the forefront of these events are targets of deliberate physical attacks, one of the founders of Mtavari Arkhi has decided to essentially join the mass violence initiated by Georgian Dream and use the means at his disposal to employ violence against journalists, in order to make their work impossible.

Zaza Okuashvili decided to do what Bidzina Ivanishvili really needs today – he decided to close the Mtavari Arkhi… Gogi Kurdadze was specially appointed to the company on the recommendation of Okuashvili with the sole task - that the mentioned founder would have effective leverage on the channel to achieve personal goals, otherwise Kurdadze does not have any competence related to the specifics of TV, he does not even know the employees of the channel, he ignores their request to simply meet with them…

The only thing that Kurdadze does on Okuashvili’s orders is to block all financial operations in the TV and refuses to sign vital contracts for the company. For example, thanks to him, health insurance was stopped for our employees, which is especially important in today’s situation, when journalists and cameramen are systematically abused, but Okuashvili and Kurdadze are not interested in this.

Due to the decision of Okuashvili and the actions of his director, the Mtavari Arkhi has already been left without financial sources, and the contracts signed with us are slowly being terminated, which will eventually make the channel’s work impossible - and this is exactly what Bidzina Ivanishvili needs today.

To justify his decisions, Okuashvili uses such absurd, invented accusations that I don’t even consider worthy of discussion here - they have gone so far in their lies that they claim that Bidzina Ivanishvili is protecting us and that we have a deal with the oligarch.

In fact, everything is clear and it is exactly the opposite - if anyone is doing the work of Georgian Dream on the Mtavari Arkhi today, it is Zaza Okuashvili, who is deliberately leading the channel to its closure. There is a very substantive suspicion that he is doing this in coordination with or for bargaining with the illegitimate government – as you probably know, Okuashvili has a serious ongoing legal dispute with Bidzina Ivanishvili, which does not exclude collaboration between them, but rather suggests that Okuashvili desperately needs to manipulate Mtavari Arkhi to reach an agreement in this dispute.

Dealing with Georgian Dream is not news from Okuashvili’s side - it was his family members, Nato and Rostom Chkheidze, who voted for the members of the Council of Justice desired by “Dream” when the Government lacked its own votes to remove these candidates and definitely needed some opposition votes as well. Then the members of Okuashvili’s family appeared as a lifeline…

To the extent we can, we will continue to fight and remain on air for our viewers and the Georgian people. Not even [Vladimer] Putin’s friend Bidzina [Ivanishvili] can stop us”, - said Giorgi Gabunia.