“Antena C” staffers urge authorities to stop violations carried out via Broadcast Code

The staff of “Antena C’ radio station calls on the President of Moldova, Speaker of Parliament, Prime Minister, Prosecutor General, head of the Centre for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption to start a direct social dialogue with the journalists and audience of the station, as well as with the civil society in order to settle the conflict generated by the decision of the Chisinau Municipal Council related to the alienation and sale of Antena C, carried out illegally, according to the journalists, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a petition sent to Vladimir Voronin, Marian Lupu, Vasile Tarlev, Valeriu Gurbulea and Valentin Mejinschi, the staff of the radio station sought explanations regarding the violations occurred during the alienation and sale of the municipal radio station, as well as about the intimidations of the staffers performed by the new owners. The journalists sought the Speaker of Parliament to explain whether the provisions of the Audiovisual Code are valid for the local broadcasters or only for the private ones, if the Broadcasting Council has the right to give recommendations on the privatisation of public programme services of the local broadcasters, if the local public authorities (LPA) have the right to reorganise the public institutions in any way or only “according to the Code, which provides in the article 5 with the existence of local public broadcasters”. “In case the Parliament can not offer an official interpretation of the norms, we request to inform the Constitutional Court (CC) in this respect. The incomplete and inconsistent character of the law, as well as its wrong interpretation and implementation by the Government led to the liquidation of the local public broadcasters, transformed them into doubtful and uncertain structures, which violate the right of the journalists to perform their activity and of the listeners to have unbiased information about the activity of the LPA”, is said in the petition sent to Marian Lupu. At the same time, the staff of Antena C called on President Vladimir Voronin, as the guarantor of the citizens’ rights and freedoms, to undertake all the necessary actions to eliminate the errors found in the Broadcast Code, including by informing CC. “This humiliating transformation affects our honour, dignity, health and life, at the same time damages the image of the country”, the journalists say. In the petition sent to PM Vasile Tarlev, the staff of Antena C asked him to submit a proposal to the Parliament on the amendment of the Code in order to clearly settle the status of local public broadcasters. “The lack of such provisions generated abuses from LPA, abuses by means of which our rights are violated”, is said in the petition. At the same time, Tarlev is asked to oblige the Ministries to fulfil their tasks on ensuring the public interest, public property, legal character of the documents issued by the LPA and citizens’ rights damaged by a public authority. The journalists urged Valeriu Gurbulea to apply legal instruments in order to enforce the rule of law, including to inform the CC, administrative proceedings court, and start penal proceedings etc. “Silence and indifference are crimes against the freedom of expression and citizens’ right to information”, is said in the petition. The journalists say that on January 19 they asked the Prosecutor General to verify the legality of the actions undertaken by the LPA as concerns the stations “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau”. The authors say that in case they will not receive an answer, or if the answer will not satisfy them, they will sue the Prosecutor’s Office because it is a public authority which violates rights in this case instead of protecting them, as outlined in the article 124 of the Constitution. In the petition sent to Valentin Mejinschi, the signers say that the sale of the municipal stations was carried out with economic violations and corruption. In order to ease the work of the CCECC, the journalists attached a video tape with the session of the CMC of December 14 2006 when the decision on the “sale” of the stations was made. “These actions were undertaken in front of the representative of the Administrative Control Department of the Local Public Administration Ministry, which did not comply yet with the provisions of the Law on PLA. The violations are obvious, and they must be investigated by the specialists you have under your authority”, is said in the petition sent to Mejinschi. The journalists remind that they sent a petition on January 19, a week before the stations were sold. They called on the General Prosecutor, ombudsmen, ministers of Economy and LPA to stop the violations of LPA, but no answer was given until now and no attempts to check out the real and the legal situation were made.