A network of regional NGOs was created in Moldova to fight torture and strengthen the efforts of civil society. This was founded by the Comrat Institute for Democracy in partnership with the National  Institute for Women of Chisinau and the Media Center of Tiraspol with the financial support of the Delegation of the European Union, IPN reports.

According to the Institute for Democracy, the first meeting of the network was held last weekend. Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova Peter Michalko reiterated that the project comes to reaffirm the EU’s desideratum to continue to support any citizen of the Republic of Moldova, regardless of the place of residence - Chisinau, Comrat or Tiraspol.

Institute for Democracy president Andrei Borshevski spoke about the importance of carrying out broad activities. The goal of the network is to transfer experience between NGOs and develop knowledge of the phenomenon of torture and torture combating methods, including methods to persuade the public authorities to ensure zero tolerance of acts of torture.

Director of the Media Center Luiza Doroshchenko underlined the necessity of establishing cooperation relations between civil society form both sides of Nistru, including by experience exchange.

Activist Nonna Mihalcean spoke about the initiative of the Institute for Democracy and its partners to open three centers of legal, psychological and rehabilitation assistance for torture victims in Chisinau, Comrat and Tiraspol. The given centers will provide primary legal and psychological assistance, including rehabilitation assistance for victims of torture or their relatives.

Alexandru Zubco, head of the Torture Prevention Division of the Office of the People’s Ombudsman, said that over 800 complaints about the poor detention conditions, insufficient or inappropriate medical services in detention places were recorded last year and over 400 complains in the first half of this year. The tendency is thus worrisome.

The network members will benefit from continuous training in preventing torture and will later disseminate the obtained knowledge at the local level. They will also offer legal information aid to other NGOs from the country’s districts. As part of the project, the Institute for Democracy will launch a program of mini-grants for NGOs of the given network to the value of €5,000 to €7,000.

The network was created within the project “We will all together say no to torture in Moldova: civil society against torture”.