The chairwoman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Moldova Arina Spătaru called on the institutions responsible for the observance of human rights to penalize the people who launch denigrating messages against women. She noted that the sexist speech is monitored only in the municipality of Chisinau, but in Balti and other localities the misogynistic rhetoric is gaining momentum. At a press conference hosted by IPN, the ALDE head said that Moldova’s path to the European Union is incompatible with offensive speech against women.
“The incident I experienced made me meditate for a long time because in our society it is not accepted to talk about it. Our women are afraid to talk about the cases of bullying, sexual harassment that they experienced. The small stories that appear in the public space do not produce results. Men who dare to denigrate women with sexist messages do not suffer somehow. They are not punished, do not have their salaries cut and are not given community service. This is outrageous. We aim to reach the European Union, but in the European Union the fight for equal opportunities between women and men persists. How can we become members of the European Union if we tolerate such sexist messages? If today the man sends us denigrating messages and we tolerate it, tomorrow he will dare to hit us, the day after tomorrow he will dare to cut our salaries and later he will dare to kick us out of work,” said Arina Spătaru.
She explained that representatives of the ruling party in Balti dared to formulate offensive messages against her, when she asked for explanations about the funds spent by the PAS in the campaign to promote the referendum. “It goes to debates organized by the Balti portal www.esp.md, which are organized and moderated by a woman. This woman did not try to stop the hate messages aimed at me. It happened on June 13. It was a public debate for the inhabitants of Balti and the north of the country, where experts and representatives of political parties are invited and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of joining the EU. I was invited as the leader of a political party, together with the PAS municipal councilor Iurie Beșliu and a civic activist from Balti. The European Union is about freedom of expression and I dared to talk about how each of us can show, by the own example, how it would be good to become members of the European Union. When I provided eloquent examples of how the PAS violates the right to freedom of expression and when I asked to be told where the PAS has money to print newspapers promoting their presidential candidate, Mr. Beșliu, who had no arguments to explain where the money comes from, replied that he knows that Arina Spătaru takes money from Shor. This denigrating message that continues to appear in the public space is artificially created by representatives of the PAS when they have nothing to respond to Arina Spătaru,” stated the ALDE head.
Arina Spătaru accuses the PAS councilor from Balti Iurie Beșliu of offensive speech against her and asks the responsible institutions to take a stand against the denigration of women. The ALDE charwoman calls for the prompt punishment of hate speech and sexist messages.
“When the live broadcast stopped, I asked Mr. Beșliu to prove this fact, in the presence of the journalist who did not stop him from speaking badly about me, Mr. Beșliu approached me and said ugly and demeaning words in Russians in my ear. I will not repeat these words. This is not a political struggle already. These are NKVD-like behaviors. I make a call to all the institutions that deal with the protection of human rights. This is inacceptable,” stated the ALDE Moldova head.
Note: IPN Agency offers the right of reply to persons who consider themselves targeted in the news items produced based on the statements of the organizers of this press conference, including by facilitating the organization of another press conference under similar conditions.
