Moldova, slowly, but safely, returns to a government regime that discourages the freedom of expression and the freedom of the media. In an interview for IPN, the executive director of the Association of Independent Press Petru Macovei said that this tendency derives from the involutions in the media sector during the last three-four years.
According to Macovei, the situation of 2016, compared with the situation of 1992, is better, but it is not enough to say that 25 years were consumed for the country’s democratic development. The Republic of Moldova had a chance that the people in other post-Soviet countries, such as the Georgian sand Ukrainians, didn’t have and these envy the many chances that Moldova had after 2009. “Moldova is the only country that obtained a liberalized visa regime within the Eastern Partnership and the first country that signed the Association Agreement and to which big prospects were opened up. But the EU opens the doors as in that proverb: they teach you to fish, but does not give you the fish. We must have rulers able to direct things to the correct path. We, regretfully, in the period had rulers who knew only now to exploit these advantages through media and for personal, private and business interests, not for the interests of the people,” he stated.
The API executive director noted that the freedom of the media is guaranteed by the Constitution and a multitude of legal acts and governmental decisions. Not all these laws function, but things have improved after 1992. “We no longer have state monopoly. We must again ascertain a positive thing and a negative one – we do not have state monopoly, but have a process of private monopolization and the ‘oligarchizatiuon’ of the mass media. This noxiously affects the freedom of expression and the pluralism of opinion,” he stated.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of Moldova’s Independence, IPN News Agency decided to depict the portrait of the current Republic of Moldova. For the purpose, it provoked a number of people, including state officials, politicians, businessmen, civil rights activists and persons without posts and titles, but who have what to say. The generic picture is called “Thoughts about and for Moldova”. The articles started to be published on July 18.
