Moldovan elderly tell UN about violations of their rights

About 100 elderly protested, Wednesday, December 10, on the International Day of Human Rights, in front of the United Nations’ House in Chisinau, in order to draw the attention of the organization on violating their rights, Info-Prim Neo reports. About 40 pensioners marched from the Great National Assembly Square to the UN quarters, chanting the slogan: “We have all rights in full, without the right to use them.” The chief of the Salvgardare Association, Maia Laguta, who organized the action, says that, there are 60 years from adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Moldova respects no point of the declaration. The pensioners protest, weekly, since half a year in front of the government, charging the authorities of “genocide.” “When the real minimal consumer basket is 4 thousand lei, not 1100, as the parliament says, the pension of 400-600 lei is not enough for a retiree, even for a week,” Maia Laguta says. At the UN House, the pensioners were joined by a group of about 60 elderly, the deponents of Intercapital bank, gone bankrupt in 1997. According to the chief of the community organization “Deponents plundered and cheated by Intercapital,” Nistor Samohvalov, the pensioners had previously had several appointments with the UN’s officials, and they said, each time, that they were not competent to help. The protesters were received by Edwin Berry, the UN counselor for human rights in Moldova. The parts agreed that, the coming week, the protesters will bring all their complaints in a written form, and in a week, they would have an official appointment with the UN representatives. The same day, the representatives of the organization of veterans and pensioners, affiliated to the extra-parliamentary party “Moldova Unita,” expressed their disagreement with the government’s policy as to the vulnerable social categories. “The veterans did their best, so that the leading political force obtain the majority in the parliament. But, after the elections, the veterans were completely abandoned,” Alexei Duca, the organization’s chief, stated.