A number of civil society organizations signed a statement by which they express their profound disappointment with the way in which the Moldovan authorities exercised their powers at the public assemblies held in Chisinau on August 26-27 and September 1.
The organizations ask the competent public authorities, especially the Chisinau City Hall, the Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor General’s Office, to thoroughly investigate all the complaints related to those events and to publish the results of the analysis and investigations in the shortest period of time. They also request to refrain from actions that generate dangers of altercations between the protesters and to obey the law concerning public assemblies. The Chisinau City Hall and the police are asked to swiftly provide public explanations as to why they allowed the Shor Party to mount a protest in the central square of Chisinau on August 26 even if this didn’t submit a notification beforehand. The event wasn’t spontaneous as it involved more than 50 persons.
The signatories of the statement also condemn the restricting of the journalists’ access to the August 26-27 events and the inaction of the police when representatives of the Shor Party pushed reporters. They ask the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior to promptly and impartially investigate the signaled cases, including those specified in the August 28 statement of the media NGOs. The organizations are dissatisfied with the fact that the police dispersed the protesters who were near the monument to Ruler Stephan the Great in the morning of August 27. They also class as illegal the dispersion and confiscation of the goods that belonged to the civil group of protesters representing OccupyGuguță in the morning of the same day.
The NGOs describe as excessive the actions taken by the police and by the administration of the Government against the participants in the Centenary March on September 1 and the disproportionate and provocative actions by the police that sequestered the buses and intervened, disconnecting the light at the place of the event and intimidating the participants by the massive presence of armed police officers and special troops.
The statement was signed by the Legal Resources Center of Moldova, Amnesty International Moldova, the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, the Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance, the Association of Independent Press, the Foreign Policy Association, the Journalistic Investigations Center, the Center for Independent Journalism, the Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims “Memoria”, the National Environmental Center, the Community Watchdog.md, the Center for Policies and Reforms Moldova, the Institute for Public Policy and Transparency International Moldova.
