3 December, Tbilisi – George Soros, global financier and philanthropist, and the founder of the Open Society Foundations visited Tbilisi last weekend.
As part of the visit George Soros met with the Open Society Georgia Foundation management – the Executive Board and Director. George Soros also met with political leaders of the country – President Mikheil Saakashvili, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Chairman of Georgian Parliament David Usupashvili – to talk about the current political environment in Georgia.
During the meeting the OSGF management and the founder summarized the OSGF activities for the past several years and considered the future priorities of the foundation. George Soros evaluated the OSGF activities, including ‘This Affects You Too’ campaign positively. Through the advocacy of several important legislative amendments the latter contributed to the improvement of the election environment and enactment of the must-carry regulation in the country, which helped the public get access to free media in the pre-election period.
George Soros recommended that the OSGF be involved in the penitentiary reform processes, in particular, in the improvement of civil control mechanisms and solutions to health care related problems in prisons.
In the coming years the OSGF will still focus on strengthening the civil society, protecting human rights, supporting the independent media and advocating for the socially vulnerable groups.
We would like to emphasize again that reports made by some media outlets that allegedly George Soros is financing the National Movement party are false and inaccurate.
We would like to specially note that George Soros and the OSGF do not finance political parties and their activities in Georgia.
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Contact person:
Ana Toklikishvili, the public relations coordinator
Tel: 595 221 999
e-mail: Anuka@csf.ge
www.csf.ge
