A number of media nongovernmental organizations, in an open letter to acting prosecutor general Andrei Pantea, ask that the prosecutors stop pressing the journalists by asking the names of the sources that they use in writing their materials. The request was made following the publication by the paper “Ziarul de Garda” of the article “Prosecutor asks reporter to reveal name of sources”. According to the paper, after the journalistic investigation centering on the illegal sale of military equipment from the National Army depot was published, the author was asked by representatives of the Chisinau Prosecutor’s Office to reveal the source, IPN reports.
“We warn about the inadmissibility of the infringement of the journalists’ right to protect the sources and about the law enforcement bodies’ obligation to work according to the principle of legality,” the NGOs say in their letter. According to the signatories, the Law on the Freedom of Expression provides that a person can reveal the source of information only in trials over serious or exceptionally serious offenses, when there are no other possibilities of identifying the source.
The media NGOs call on the Prosecutor General’s Office, as a body that coordinates the work of the subordinate prosecutor’s offices, to take measures to exclude any illegal pressure on the representatives of the media.
The letter was signed by the Independent Journalism Center, the Independent Press Association, the Electronic Press Association – APEL, the Journalistic Investigations Center, “Acces-Info” Center, the Journalists Union of Moldova, the Committee for the Freedom of the Press, and the Young Journalist’s Center of Moldova. Ombudsman Tudor Lazar subscribed to the appeal.
