NGO “Moldova Moderna” says NIT was penalized by political order

The head of the nongovernmental organization “Moldova Moderna” (“Modern Moldova”) Valeriu Renita calls on civil society institutions and consumers of information to take attitude to the penalization of the private TV channel NIT by the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC), Info-Prim Neo reports. NIT was fined 5,400 lei for lack of pluralism of opinion during the campaign for the constitutional referendum. Valeriu Renita considers the BCC’s decision is a political order. “No organization that protects the media and the rights of the journalists reacted to the warnings that NIT will remain without a license, given by the Prime Minister and Acting President and to the penalty imposed by the BCC,” Valeriu Renita told a news conference on Thursday. He said he does not understand why civil society does not take steps. According to Valeriu Renita, 98% of the mass media outlets in Moldova are affiliated to the power. Only several media organizations try to have pluralism of opinion. “The media as a whole did not take the freedom of expression test as it was evidently biased during the campaign for the September 5 referendum. Except for several outlets, all the mass media organizations openly supported the Government,” he said. Today, a number of media organizations, including the Independent Journalism Center, the Independent Press Association, “Acces-info” Center, the Investigative Journalism Center, and the Electronic Press Association, issued a statement, expressing their disagreement with the September 15 decision of the Broadcasting Coordination Council to publicly warn the TV channels Moldova 1 and Publika TV for broadcasting citizen education adverts on the day of the constitutional referendum. The statement says nothing about NIT. The administration of NIT called upon the TV channels working in the country to be united as there are times when they should abandon the barricaded. “We will be liquidated today, while you will be closed tomorrow. As the media NGOs do not take attitude to these direct attacks on the mass media, we, the journalists, should join forces. If we do not oppose the attempts to eliminate in inconvenient media outlets, we will remain without independent media,” says a statement signed by the NIT director Adela Raileanu.