Name of Grant Activity: Internet Freedom as Human Right in Georgia
Donor Organization: Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Grant Recipient: Institute for Development of Freedom of Information
Total Grant Amount: 6499.35 €
Period of Performance: November-December, 2014

In 2014 Web turns 25. This quarter of century has seen internet affect virtually all aspects of our lives including communication, services, education, news, entertainment, business, governance etc. However, along with the unarguable advantages, internet has also brought new challenges and debatable questions: how to protect human rights in internet? Should internet be regulated? If yes, how, by whom and to what extent?

While common to any country, these questions are of even more importance for those countries struggling with protecting human rights offline – Georgia, as one of the newer democracies, being one of the examples. Despite impressive progress in terms of e-governance, Georgia is still facing such basic problems as lack of internet access, with only less than half of its population being connected to World Wide Web. However, the biggest challenge remains lack of strategic view on internet development. Despite high level of public interest there have been considerably few opportunities to discuss and debate on such issues.

With the goal to fill this existing gap about internet as human right, there could be no better timing as December – since December 10th is celebrated worldwide as international human rights day. Thus, IDFI with the support of Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Georgia plans to organize an event with the goal to promote discussion on diverse aspects of internet freedom as human right and create space for debate on whether, when, how and to what extent to regulate internet.

Activities:

Discussion "Internet as a Human Right", December 6th, Multimedia Education Centre (MEC)

• Moderator: Joseph Alexander Smith, Journalist, Georgia Today
• Key-note Speaker: Xander Bouwman, Social Media Activist (the Kingdom of Netherlands) – Internet access as a human right

Panel Discussion: Challenges of Internet Freedom in Georgia

• Internet access in Georgia: David Lee, President of MagtiCom
• Surveillance: Lasha Tughushi, Commission on Secret Surveillance, editor of newspaper "Resonance", chairman of Georgian Civil Society National Platform for the Eastern Partnership
• Hate speech: Gubaz Koberidze, No Hate Speech Movement, Council of Europe
• Copyright & Censorship: Giorgi Gogua, RFERL

Panel Discussion: Internet regulation – do’s and don’ts

• Tamta Tepnadze, Public Defender of Consumers’ Rights at GNCC (Georgian National Communications Commission)
• Nino Sarishvili, Office of the Personal Data Protection Inspector, Head of International Relations and Communications Department
• Zviad Koridze, Media expert
• David Kldiashvili, Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, Secretary of the Council

Contract