On the seventh anniversary of the April 7, 2009 events, Amnesty International Moldova, together with other NGOs, mounted a marathon that included a series of institutions that, according to them, are responsible for the conviction of torturers and that tortured hundreds of people who took part in the antigovernment protests of April 2009. The participants in the marathon, who carried an anti-torture torch, said that by his event they condemn the ‘deliberate impotency of all the governments that ruled starting with 2009 to judicially manage a case of torture,’ IPN reports.
According to a press release of the organizers, the marathon started at the Supreme Council of Magistracy and headed for the Torture Combating Division of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The Government and Parliament were the next institutions visited by the marathon participants. These criticized the governments that ruled after 2009 for their inability and unwillingness to manage the most serious case of torture in the history of the independent state Moldova, despite all the promises.
Amnesty International Moldova executive director Cristina Pereteatcu said the demonstrations of April 2009 were the last civil activism break, when the people hoped that the change depends on them, while the demanding of rights is protected and guaranteed by the state. “Who can say exactly how many of those involved in the April 2009 events stay in Parliament or head ministries today? The state is obliged to deal with the April 7, 2009 case and impose jail terms,” she stated.
Ludmila Popovici, executive director of the Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims “Memoria”, noted that in seven years of those events, even if the phenomenon of torture is broadly recognized, society witnesses impunity and discrimination of victims.
Ion Guzun, jurist at the Legal Resources Center, stated that seven years of impunity mean that the rule of law institutions and justice failed. “I no longer believe that the judges, prospectors or persons from the police, the Security and Intelligence Service and other responsible institutions will answer for the committed illegalities. We will discover the truth too late, as in the totalitarian states, where the truth is hidden and the persons are not brought to justice. That’s why I think that the Republic of Moldova cannot claim to be sharing the values of the European states,” he said.
