Free Media Awards 2024
Nastasia Arabuli (Georgia)

She has effectively challenged the power structures in her home country by exposing the consequences of power on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tbilisi service. Nastasia Arabuli recently helped conducting a major investigation into the sexual abuse of several young women in the Georgian Orthodox Church, and is considered one of the most vocal defenders of LGBTQ+ rights in Georgia. In connection with the introduction of the “Foreign Agents Law” and the protests against it in the spring of 2024, she extensively reported on injustices committed by the authorities. Arabuli is currently conducting an important series of in-depth interviews with political leaders, activists and civil society representatives in the run-up to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia, scheduled for October 26, 2024. In recent years, Nastasia Arabuli has documented the systematic persecution of independent voices in Georgia’s cultural institutions, drawing attention to the authorities’ strategies of control through propaganda and discrediting campaigns. In the aftermath of Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine, Nastasia Arabuli used big data to uncover various attempts to circumvent economic sanctions and trade restrictions in Georgia, and wrote about a suspicious increase in microchip exports from the U.S. to Georgia parallel to the war in Ukraine. Nastasia Arabuli herself was among the journalists who bore the brunt of attacks by politicians and government propaganda.