Authors, publishers and beneficiaries of editorial products will be held accountable for printing works running counter to legislation

The authors, publishers and beneficiaries of editorial products will be held accountable for printing works that run counter to the legislation. This new stipulation will replace the ban on publishing literature “that contests and defames the state and the people, incites to war and aggression, to national, racial or religious hatred, to discrimination, territorial separatism and public violence” in the law on editorial activity that was revised by the Parliament on November 6, Info-Prim Neo reports. After the Parliament adopted a series of amendments to the law on editorial activity, which aroused the publishers’ protest, President Vladimir Voronin sent the law back to the Parliament for reexamination. The head of state argued that the law contains shortcomings. He said that the stipulations that ban the printing of anti-constitutional texts “double the existing norms and their ambiguity will lead to an arbitrary implementation, which, in turn, will diminish the freedom of expression and the freedom of creation and will create conflict situations in these areas. “Such a ban on publishing could be assessed in time as an act of censorship that, according to the Constitution, cannot be applied to creation and is banned,” the President said in his appeal to the Parliament. At the same time, Vladimir Voronin says that the author and beneficiary, not the publisher, should be blamed for the publishing of works that run counter to the legislation. Yet, after discussions between the head of state and the specialized parliamentary commission, it was decided that the blame will be put on the authors, beneficiaries as well as publishers. During revision, the Parliament excluded the provisions that offered the state publishing houses priority in publishing works from public money. “The state can publish or support certain titles, a certain type of book, but not a publishing house to the detriment of another,” Voronin said. There were also excluded the stipulations concerning the specialized parliamentary commission’s duty of approving the lists of works proposed for publication from public money. The use of up to 5% of the books printed as part of official events and cultural activities of major importance was left at the publishers’ discretion. Earlier, the publishers complained that the ban on printing a certain type of book is in itself an act of censorship. According to the publishers, the stipulations that offer priority to state publishing houses “impose an economic discrimination of the Moldovan people according to corporative principles and a disloyal economic competition.” The use of about 5% of the editorial products for advertising activities is inefficient and continues the totalitarian tradition of appropriating ‘donations’ for certain institutions or officials, the publishers said.