NGOs to protest against police in civilian clothing

A series of NGOs dealing with the defense of human rights in Moldova will stage protests till the year-end, in Chisinau, to express their dissatisfaction with the practice employed by the Interior Ministry to send policemen in civilian clothing to halt protest actions. “Just imagine if all the leaders of the NGOs defending the human rights are arrested,” said Evgeny Golosceapov, the executive director of Amnesty International Moldova, at a round table within the quarters of Info-Prim Neo news agency, on Monday, December 22. Leaders and representatives of human rights defending NGOs gathered to exchange opinions about the way in which the authorities understand to apply the new law on public assemblies, in force since April 2008. The speakers remarked that Interior Ministry employees know very well this law not demanding a permit from authorities to organize public assemblies. The police has invented a new practical way of hampering the protests: it sends employees dressed in civilian clothing who stop the actions and arrest the participants. “The policemen in civilian clothes do not introduce themselves,” said Ghenadie Brega, a member of Hyde Park NGO. “They sequester personal belongings and erase the video images made by the participants in protests,” Brega says. Anatol Hristea-Stan, another member of Hyde Park has told how a group of some six people forced him to get on a trolley in Chisinau, while he was attending a protest action. He believes they were police. “It's interesting that the other people on the trolley paid no attention to what was going on. The individuals kept hiding their faces in their collar,” Hristea-Stan said. Anatol Matasaru, who introduced himself as “an ordinary protesting citizen”, has told how the police invents files against the people held up in protests. Most often they are accused of attacking the police, of hooliganism and, more recently, of urinating in public places. Alexandru Postica, the executive manager of Promo LEX has concluded that the legislation insuring the freedom of assemblies is good, only it is implemented faultily. Sergiu Ostaf, the executive manager of the Resources Center for Human Rights (CreDO), has suggested that the associations ask for a meeting with the leadership of the Interior Ministry and of the General Prosecutor's Office to try and convince them to renounce the practice of sending police in civilian clothes to hamper the public assemblies. Up to now, no police officer has been sanctioned for hindering assemblies. “Moreover, some of them have even been promoted to higher ranks,” said Ghenadie Brega. Although only the courts are entitled to ban assemblies grounding on some very clear stipulations in the law, the NGO leaders have said the officials decide concerning assemblies depending on their personal attitude toward the rallies.