Civil society encourages Government to adopt nondiscrimination policies

The Government is encouraged to adopt policies that promote social inclusion and non-discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, social and political views, religion, and sexual orientation, Info-Prim Neo reports. The encouragement comes from the Resource Center for Human Rights (CREDO), the Human Rights Institute (IDOM), the Legal Resource Center, and lawyer Doina Ioana Straisteanu. The NGOs recommend the executive to adopt policies aimed at providing social assistance to the socially deprived groups, preventing and combating discrimination, and at imposing the penalties needed to prevent the use of offensive statements against certain groups of people. They also encourage the adoption of policies to create workplaces and better work conditions as well as better social conditions for persons with disabilities by offering equal employment opportunities for young people and vocational school graduates and excluding the differentiated payment for the same work done by men and women. CREDO director Sergiu Ostaf said the civil society’s encouragement is a reply to the news conference given by His Holiness Marchel, archpriest of the Bishopric of Balti and Falesti, on February 3. The archpriest said than that Prime Minister Vladimir Filat and his European ‘relatives’ demand that the Law on the Prevention and Combating of Discrimination, known as the Antidiscrimination Law, be adopted as they want to marginalize the Church and the work of the priests who defend the morality and to justify the commitments made to the European authorities that tell the Premier what to do and how to do. “We think that such a practice used by a Church official excites the public, while the marginal language and attitude of harassment towards certain social groups is an example of bad taste,” Sergiu Ostaf told a news conference on Monday. Lawyer Doina Ioana Straisteanu said she recognizes the right to opinion, but it should be exercised in a civilized way. “The hate speech is banned as it propagates discrimination on certain grounds. We know to what groups the Church official referred on February 3 (homosexuals and those of other religions orientations – a.n.),” she said. The representatives of civil society consider the right to opinion in the case of Church officials is exaggerated and virulent and the statements made by them show that they directly support certain political forces, which runs counter to the legislation on religious freedom and beliefs.