Moldovan Lib-Dems use everything legal to defend their rights

The Liberal Democratic Party from Moldova (PLDM) is determined not to let itself intimidated by the illegalities it is subjected to by law-enforcing bodies and will resort too all legal methods to defend its rights. The statement was made by the PLDM leaders at a news conference on Monday, April 14, in Chisinau, Info-Prim Neo reports. The PLDM president, Vlad Filat, has said party members are subjected to interrogations by Anti-Corruption prosecutors and officers from the Anti-Corruption Center (CCCEC) absolutely illegally, without being told the reasons for being quizzed. Moreover, they are not summoned by subpoenas, but are phoned and blackmailed to be arrested unless they go to the CCCEC. Law-enforcers have raided institutions where there work PLDM members and at the party’s quarters to search into funding the party, what is absolutely illegal, says Vlad Filat. He gave the example of Chisinau kindergarten no. 113, where the employees which were party members were subjected to humiliating interrogations and even menaced. The Lib-Dem leader says the interrogators were the prosecutors Eugen Bordos and Aurel Burlacu, and one of them hinted at least 2,000 Liberal-Democrats will be quizzed. According to Filat, “the fear of the dictatorial regime for the support the PLDM gets from citizens and for losing power impels it to use law-enforcers as a tool to settle accounts with political opponents. The main conductors of the intimidations are the ruling party and its associate – PPCD (Christian-Democrats), says Filat. He vows to sue all the violations, and in case the Moldovan courts do not judge fairly, the PLDM will address the ECHR. “But before going to the ECHR, we hope the 2009 elections will make the Communist regime fall, which will be the biggest sentence for the Communists and their accomplices,” says Filat. A PLDM deputy leader, Alexandru Tanase, maintains the things happening now around the party and the moves of the law-enforcement bodies are liable to the Penal Code. PLDM has had problems since lodging documents to be registered at the Justice Ministry, which did not want to register it claiming 2,000 signatures were forged. Then groundless accusations, reluctance to return original applications to party members, the CCCEC checking up the party, interrogating members of the party have followed. Tanase maintains all those pursue to drive the PLDM off the political arena. He says there is no ground for interrogations, and in case a criminal inquest had been started, the investigators are obliged to name the article on the basis of which the interrogations are unfolded. Another top leader, Mihai Godea, says he is among of the people subjected to interrogation. He was asked by 3 CCCEC officers about what they called “blackmailing, paying and compelling undertaken by third parties upon people to join the PDLM”. Godea says he saw the investigators had some 30-40 questions previously prepared on a 1-2 pages. 6 more members have been invited today through intimidation to the CCCEC, Godea added. The PLDM leadership also commented the gesture of the Foreign Ministry which did not sign the accord proposed by the Romanian Foreign Ministry to allow the Moldovan citizens living at 50 km from the Romanian border to travel to Europe without visas, by conditioning it with signing the basic Treaty between Romania and Moldova. Vlad Filat describes this as a gesture against own citizens undertaken by the Chisinau rulers. They have referred to the Transnistrian conflict talks at the news conference, as the PLDM leader says President Voronin is not empowered to take, all by himself, on the basis of his personal relationships with leader Igor Smirnov, crucial decisions to be taken by the Moldovan people. “We stand for a sustainable settlement of the Transnistrian conflict, but not for Moldova’s transnistrization,” Vlad Filat said.