PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME: draft decision that was not examined by Parliament on June 28, 2010

Info-Prim Neo Agency publishes for the first time fragments from the draft decision of the Moldovan Parliament regarding the historical, political and legal assessment of the totalitarian Communist regime in Moldova. The bill wasn’t examined by the legislative body because the sitting scheduled for June 28 did not take place following a decision reached by the leaders of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) in the morning of the same day. The sources who furnished the Agency with the bill assured that namely this text was handed over to the AEI leaders on June 27 in the evening. Later, the leaders commented on a number of norms included in the draft decision, but the general public could not form impressions as they did not know the text. Thus, the Parliament was to consider the following provisions: Art. 1. The conclusions and recommendations of the report on the historical, political and legal assessment of the totalitarian Communist regime in Moldova, produced by the commission for studying this regime in Moldova, which was set up by the Presidential Decree No. 165-V of January 14, 2010 are approved; Art. 2. The totalitarian Communist regime of the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic is condemned as one that committed crimes against humanity; Art. 3. The persons who held responsible positions in the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic and of the Communists Party who organized crimes against the Moldovan population are declared criminals; Art. 4. It is banned using the term ‘Communist’ and its derivates in the names of political parties, sociopolitical organizations and institutions and enterprises; Art. 5. It is banned using and propagating, for political purposes, the symbols of the totalitarian Communist regime – the hammer and sickle as well as the Nazi symbols; Art. 6. It is banned promoting the totalitarian ideologies as well as the Communist and Nazi ones; Art. 7. The victims of the totalitarian Communist regime of the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, citizens of Moldova who were condemned and/or persecuted for ideological, political, national, religious and other reasons during the time of the Soviet Union, are politically rehabilitated. If the decision had been adopted in the given form, the Government would have had the following duties: c) to draft and promote a bill on lustration; e) to reorganize the archive of the sociopolitical organizations of Moldova by separating the documents concerning the totalitarian Communist regime and create the achieve of the totalitarian Communist regime in Moldova within three months of the coming into force of this decision; f) to make sure that all the documents from the special archives of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration and the Security and Information Service, the Prosecutor General’s Office and of other institutions that show the essence of the totalitarian Communist regime are transferred to the achieve of the totalitarian Communist regime in Moldova; g) to finance the compilation and publication of a history textbook about the totalitarian Communist regime and introduce a history course on totalitarianism in schools; h) to create, in concert with the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, the Center for Studying the Totalitarian Communist Regime at the Institute of History, State and Law by January 1, 2011, and finance it; i) to take down all the monuments to V.I Lenin in Moldova and remove the “hammer and sickle” from all the buildings; j) to take steps to implement the conclusions and recommendations of the commission for studying the totalitarian Communist regime in Moldova. The preamble of the draft decision makes reference to a number of documents that recommend condemning the totalitarian Communist regimes, a part of which were adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE and other organizations.