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The Council of Europe's Safety of Journalists Platform urges Georgia to review the entry bans imposed on journalists Andrei Mialeshka and Arsen Kharatyan and stop the practice of banning journalists and media workers from entering the country. Below is the CoE statement released on Wednesday.

"On 15 September 2024, the Belarusian journalist Andrei Mialeshka, who has been living in Georgia since 2021, was denied entry to the country after returning from Poland. The grounds for the denial were cited as "other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation".

“They’re sending us back to Poland without giving any explanation. Our passports were confiscated, and we’re now sitting in a strange room at Kutaisi Airport,” Mialeshka wrote on social media. He also mentioned that he applied for international protection in Georgia but was told: “You’ve lived in Georgia for three years; why didn’t you apply earlier?” According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), Mialeshka left Belarus due to political persecution and had been residing in Georgia for the past three years. The journalist and his daughter who he was travelling with were sent back to Warsaw, Poland, leaving his wife and another child in Georgia.

On 16 September, Arsen Kharatyan, the founder and editor-in-chief of the outlet Aliq Media, also reported being denied entry to Georgia. Kharatyan stated on social media that he was detained at Tbilisi International Airport for four hours before being sent back to Europe. Although he had a return ticket to Yerevan from Tbilisi for 18 September, the border guards informed him that, according to the law, if a person is denied entry, they must be sent back to their point of departure.

A few days earlier, on 11 September, Georgian border guards briefly held Kharatyan at Tbilisi International Airport and gave him a form citing "other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation" as the grounds for entry denial. However, on that occasion, he was eventually allowed to enter the country.

Following the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia, Kharatyan served as a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and before that worked in the United States as a reporter."