Knowing the Romanian language on the left side of the Nistru River is becoming more and more difficult, says the executive director of the human rights organization Promo-LEX. Ion Manole told Info-Prim Neo that Romanian isn’t promoted in the region. The Romanian language in the Latin script is practically banned and its version in the Cyrillic script isn’t used in cities, in the media and in the higher education institutions in the region. Of the 60 media organizations in the region, only the newspaper “Adevarul Nistrean” uses the “Moldovan” language. The weekly is printed in Cyrillic script and has a circulation of only 800 copies. The Promo-LEX director says that there are no newspapers printed in the Latin script in the region. They are neither produced there, nor are they allowed for sale. The situation is pretty much the same as regards TV channels. Only TV-PMR broadcasts in the three “official” languages of the region, i.e. “Moldovan”, Ukrainian and Russian. The broadcast time allotted for each language isn’t distributed evenly: 7%, 6% and 87% respectively. Only one of the 16 radio stations broadcasts in Ukrainian, while the others use Russian. Radio-PMR has some broadcasts in “Moldovan” (13%) and Ukrainian (11%). “Considering that the locals’ access to media sources and products from Moldova is limited and that the programs and newscasts in other languages than Russian occupy a minimum percentage of the broadcast programs, the people in the region cannot be educated in the spirit of democratic values, tolerance and civilized debates”, said the Promo-LEX director. According to Ion Manole, the phenomenon of journalistic censorship persists in both public and private mass media institutions, which aren’t critical of the region’s administration. “Given the rapid development of information technologies, the significant growth of the broadcasting market and the improvement of access to information in Moldova, in the region this segment remains too limited. For 20 years, the media market has been controlled by the region’s administration and has developed artificially. Last year, we noticed the emergence of several TV channels broadcasting via the Internet, media sources that have a more independent editorial policy and increased professionalism compared to other local sources and products”, said Ion Manole. There are 60 media institutions in the Transnistrian region: 40 newspapers, 11 magazines, 5 radio stations and 4 TV channels.