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Georgia’s demands Ukraine explain why its journalists was banned from entering Ukraine

TBILISI, December 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Georgia’s television company Rustavi-2 has urged the Ukrainian authorities to provide explanations why its journalist David Kakuliya was banned from entering the country.

“Having banned David Kakuliya to enter Ukraine for a term of one year, the Ukrainian side groundlessly hampered him in doing his job,” the television company said in a statement on Friday. “By doing this, the Ukrainian side violated not only bilateral agreements but also international law. Rustavi-2 urges the Ukrainian side to provide explanations and asks the Georgian foreign ministry to respond to this fact.”

The Georgian journalist, who has been highlighting the development in the Ukrainian capital since late November 2013, was not allowed to enter the country on Friday. According to Kakuliya, when he arrived at the Kiev airport, Ukrainian border officers told him he had been put on a blacklist of people banned from entering the country. “They told me that the Ukrainian Security Service has banned me from entering Ukraine for a period from December 8, 2013 to December 8, 2014 to carry out my journalistic activity there,” he said.

He said he had been shown a document saying that while doing his job in Kiev [since late November] he had violated the country’s laws, for which reasons the Ukrainian Security Service had put him on a persona non grata list.

Kakuliya said he was placed in special premises at a terminal of Kiev’s airport Borispol along with other people banned from entering Ukraine. He said he was allowed to mover about the airports territory accompanied by Ukrainian border service officers and was to leave Ukraine in a span of 24 hours.

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