A number of nongovernmental organizations signed a statement whereby they warn the public opinion about the deterioration of the working environment for civil society organizations and the mass media, IPN reports.
The signatories say there are signs of systemic actions aimed at splitting and discrediting civil society organizations, including by comparing these with quasi-nongovernmental organizations. The cases of intimidation of independent media outlets by public authorities intensified. More often, representatives of public institutions ‘penalize’ the civil society organizations and representatives of the unaffiliated media for critical opinions about the activity of these authorities. At the same time, some of the NGOs promote an agenda that is presented as representative of civil society, resorting to nontransparent actions and approaches, abusing established civil society platforms, reads the statement.
They refer to the Civic Forum for Monitoring the implementation of the Moldova-EU Association Agreement that was held on February 22, 2017. The report on justice compiled by the Resource Center for Human Rights (CReDO) wasn’t published or presented to members of the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum. Another described case is when a phantom website ziaruldegarda.com appeared on February 21, 2017 and used the name of the paper “Ziarul de Garda” and distributed information written by anonymous authors or taken from other websites.
The signatories call on the development partners to follow closely and disapprove of the actions that undermine the freedom of association, the freedom of opinion and expression and call on the public authorities in Moldova to an open, nondiscriminatory and honest dialogue on issues of major public interest, involving representatives of all the NGOs and media outlets, regardless of the stated opinions and promoted positions.
Among the signatory organizations are: the Association for Participatory Democracy “ADEPT”, the Association of Professional and Business Women of Moldova, the Alliance of Active NGOs in the Field of Social Protection of Family and Child, the Association of Independent Press, the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul”, Promo-Lex Association and others.
