MPs Urge Russian Colleagues to Help in Release of TV Crew

The Georgian Parliament prepares a special letter to the Russian State Duma, a lower chamber of the Parliament, in which the Georgian MPs ask their Russian counterparts to help in release of Georgian journalists detained in North Ossetia?s city of Beslan on September 4.
 
?If the Russian political elite do not pay attention to this issue, we will consider that Russia conducts political persecution against Georgian journalists,? leader of the parliamentary majority Maia Nadiradze said at a news briefing on September 7.
 
Journalist of Tbilisi-based Rustavi 2 television Nana Lezhava and cameraman Levan Tetvadze were arrested by the North Ossetian police, while covering developments in the terror-stricken town of Beslan. Both are accused of illegal crossing the state border.
 
The court in Russia?s North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz has already sentenced the Georgian journalists to pre-trial detention.