“Here They Are Coming In To The Studio…”

I’m out of my league in commenting on the crisis in Georgia, but I wanted to pass along two video clips of the opposition TV station, Imedi, being shut down recently by Georgian security forces. (For more detailed coverage of events in Georgia, click over to Joshua Foust and Nathan Hamm’s excellent blog, Registan.)

Clip 1: This is the first clip in a two-part set. It’s entirely in Georgian, but even if you don’t know the language, the faces of the two reporters convey a lot of the meaning. Imedi, which was accused of calling for forcible regime change, was raided by security forces as these reporters continued to broadcast. From the background noise, you can get a sense of what’s going on.

Clip 2: From what I can tell, this clip follows the first. The reporter is explaining what’s going on in the studio, and that there has been a major crackdown. “All employees are lying with their faces down,” he says at one point. (A translation is provided.)