Private publishers say recent amendments favor state-run publishing houses

The Parliament on Thursday passed amendments to the law on the publishing activity banning “anticonstitutional literature”. Private publishers deplore the change, labeling it “an act of censorship”, which, at the same time, favors the publishing houses under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in an illegal, inequitable and non-transparent manner, Info-Prim Neo reports. The adopted amendments have outlawed literature that contains “elements defying and maligning the state and the nation, calling to war and aggression, to ethnic, racial or religious hatred, inciting to discrimination, territorial separatism, public violence, and other displays attempting on the constitutional regime”. The law in its current version also sets the rules of supporting the publishing of books from the state budget and their distribution to school libraries. The lists of the books to be published from public money will be drafted by the Ministry of Culture, at the proposal of state-run publishing houses, coordinated later with the Ministry of Education and Youth and the Moldovan Academy of Sciences and subject to approval by the specialized parliamentary commission. The books published on public money will be passed to the two ministries for further dissemination among the public and school libraries. In final reading, the law was completed with a new paragraph reading that the funds for supporting the publishing of books may be provided for by the local budgets as well. On the other side, there are the private publishers who state that the ban placed on any kind of books is an act of censorship per se. In a joint statement issued by the directors of the publishing houses Arc, Prut International, Epigraf, Museum, Cartier, Stiinta and Litera it is said that “no law can obstruct the right to freedom of opinion”. As the publishers warn, “knowing that the law cannot be applied selectively, it is impossible to imagine a body that would read and authorize in an unbiased and correct manner all the books that are published or are in the course of being published”. According to the statement, the most vulnerable and freely interpretable phrase is “elements defying and maligning the state and the nation”. In addition, it is unclear how the publishing of forbidden literature will be punished. The provisions favoring the state-run publishing companies are, according to the private publishers, “absolutely illegal”, as they entail economic discrimination and unfair competition. The government may support certain books or a certain type of books, but not a certain company to another company's disadvantage, the statement adds. Concluding the statement, the private publishers suggest the government should instead invite bids to select books for public and school libraries.