March supporting people hampered to organize public assemblies

Human rights defending NGOs march in Chisinau Thursday, in sign of support for the people and the organizations hampered by authorities to organize public assemblies, Info-Prim Neo reports. Armed with placards, small fir trees and masks of pigs and donkeys, the protesters went from the Human Rights Center to the Justice Ministry. Since no official in the ministry got out to talk with the participants in the protest, they gave the policeman at the entrance a fir tree. They also sang a carol to the policeman, complaining their rights were breeched. Also they went to sing carols to the Foreign Ministry, no official from there got out to talk to them. The protesters were hindered by the police to approach the quarters of the Parliament and of the Presidential Palace.“There are entities with special strategical statute, so I ask you to unfold your activity over there,” Rodion Budeanu, the deputy commissar of Buiucani police, told the protesters. “It's clear the law on public assembly is breeched. If we don't stay indifferent, if we protest every time when the rights to free speech are breeched, the things will get to normal in the long run,” said Evghenii Golosceapov, the executive director of Amnesty International Moldova. The protest march ended in front of the Interior Ministry. An official of the ministry recognized by the protesters to be Petru Corduneanu, a former deputy commissar of Chisinau, called the attendees “disgraces of society wandering on streets from the morning and hampering the religious holidays.” “I think it's immoral to that a police officer calls the civil society disgraces, and to send a representative of the press to wash himself. I think I'll complain to the prosecutor's office,” said Oleg Brega, a leader of Hyde Park NGO.