Freedom House's Assessment of Georgia's Democracy 'Extremely Biased' - Tbilisi

TBILISI (Sputnik) – Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili on Thursday criticized the report of the US-based Freedom House human rights organization, which pointed to setback for Georgia’s democratic development, as "extremely biased."

In the Nations in Transit 2018 report, published by the watchdog on Wednesday, Georgia scored 4.68 points on the scale where 1 is the most democratic and 7 is the least democratic country. The report indicated that in 2017, Georgia saw setbacks to its democratic transformation due to problems in the judicial and media freedom area. The document noted, however, that Georgia remained the least corrupt country in the post-Soviet world, excluding the Baltic states.

"The assessment by Freedom House is extremely biased and is based on unbalanced information, that is why I believe that this organization should think twice before spreading biased information about the quality of democratic development in Georgia," Kvirikashvili said in a statement.

Irakli Kobakhidze, the speaker of the Georgian parliament, during an emergency briefing on the Freedom House report, also pointed to the prejudiced nature of the document, and noted that the paper had not reflected the breakthrough in the area of human rights protection, democracy, and freedom, which Georgia had achieved since 2012.

Georgia's score in the Freedom House’s 2017 Nations in Transit report was 4.61 points.