Media nongovernmental organizations condemn the abuses by persons who prevented journalists working for a number of media outlets from covering the events staged in the Great National Assembly Square of Chisinau on August 26 and 27, related to the demonstrations and the celebration of Moldova’s 27th independence anniversary. In a press statement that is quoted by IPN, the media NGOs condemn the inaction of police officers who didn’t intervene to stop the abuses by Ilan Shor’s bodyguards against reporters and didn’t guarantee the journalists’ constitutional right to practice.
Thus, on August 26, when two protests were mounted – one staged by the National Resistance Movement ACUM and another one organized by the Shor Party that was not announced – a number of incidents involving journalists were reported. According to the signatories, the reporter of Radio Free Europe Nicu Gusan was pushed by the bodyguards of the leader of the Shor Party when he was trying to interview Ilan Shor and Marina Tauber. Also then, several men in civvies, who accompanied Marina Tauber, had the same behavior in relation to Aliona Ciurca, of the paper Ziarul de Gardă. Aurica Rusnac-Jardan, of the portal Unimedia.info, was pushed by police officers when she was trying to obtain a statement from the mayor of Orhei. The reporter of Radio Free Europe Tatiana Etsko was aggressed by sympathizers of Ilan Shor at the same protest.
According to the statement, Natalia Morari, of TV8, said she tried for five times to enter the crowd, but wasn’t allowed by the police. Meanwhile, Oxana Bodnari, of Publika TV, related that some of the participants in the other protest insulted her and tried to prevent her from filming.
On August 27, Mariana Rață, of TV8, on a social networking site wrote that even if she presented a journalist’s permit, the police banned her from going through the fence that was temporarily installed around the Government Building for the reason that she didn’t have a “blue permit”. Ziarul de Gardă published a video showing the guard of Prime Minister Pavel Filip preventing Maria Genunchi and Aliona Ciurca from putting questions about the protest to the Premier.
The media NGOs say the legislation on the mass media guarantees the right of representatives of the press to take part in public events and broadcast information, to make recordings, take pictures and film and the restricting of journalists’ rights is punished criminally in accordance with the national legislation and goes against the international standards on the freedom of the press.
The media NGOs remind the Moldovan authorities that the freedom of the press is one of the main values of democracy that is enshrined in the Constitution. They call on the Prosecutor General’s Office to examine these cases and on the administration of the Ministry of the Interior to conduct an own investigation and hold accountable those to blame for the violation of journalists’ legitimate rights.
The statement was signed by the Independent Journalism Center, the Association of Independent Press, the Electronic Press Association, the Journalistic Investigations Center, the Committee for the Freedom of the Press, the Association of Independent Tele-Journalists, the Center “Acces-Info” and RISE Moldova.
