Publishers complain about state’s ideological and economic censorship

The editors in Moldova denounce the authorities for their ideological and economic censorship and accuse them of attempt to destroy the national book publishing system. The problems encountered in the editorial activity in Moldova were discussed at a roundtable meeting organized by the Publishers’ Union of Moldova as part of the International Book Fair, Info-Prim Neo reports. The publishers are dissatisfied primarily with the recent amendments to the law on editorial activity and the new regulations concerning the assessment and selection of textbooks for pre-university education. They describe the ban on printing literature that “challenges and defames the state and the people, incites to war, aggression, national, racial or religious hatred, discrimination, territorial separatism, public violence and other practices that attack the constitutional regime”, introduced by the new law, as censorship. They also say that the new stipulations favor the state publishing houses subordinated to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Iurie Colesnic, the director of “Museum” publishing house, said that the state uses the Constitution as a censorship instrument. “No publisher will edit a work that incites to anti-Semitism, hatred among people or war. Can a publisher in the given situation edit for example “Cantarea Romaniei” (“Ode to Romania”) by Alecu Russo, a Bessarabian that praised the neighboring country?” On the other hand, Victor Ciobanu, the head of the Culture Ministry’s National Programs Division, said that the idea of introducing amendments to the law appeared in 2006, when a publishing house printed the constitution of Transnistria. He said that the publishers were consulted when the new law was being drafted. The new regulations concerning the publishing of textbooks prevent the publishing houses with a rich experience from participating in the compiling and publishing of textbooks, said Gheorghe Prini, the head of “Stiinta” publishing house. According to him, the new textbooks started to be published in 2006 as part of a project co-financed by the World Bank. After the publishing houses invested money and human resources, creating a complex editorial system, all their experience and investments were ignored and there was implemented a rudimentary mechanism for assessing textbooks, worked out only by authors and then multiplied. “The new regulations will seriously affect the education system in Moldova,” Gheorghe Prini said. He stressed that the state pays little attention to the publishing sector, which was once highly appreciated in the Soviet area. All the steps taken in the past few years to improve the situation in the field applied to separate enterprises and private initiatives, but the state did not intervene with a national policy. Many of the libraries that survived are empty, mainly in villages, and do not have books in Romanian. The figures for 2005-2006 show that in Moldova there are 17 books in Russian and only two books in Romanian per capita. Most of the books are in Cyrillic script. Gheorghe Prini also said that the former book distribution network practically disappeared. Almost all the Soviet-era bookshops in villages were transformed into bars and food stores after privatized. Iurie Barsa, the head of “Arc” publishing house, said that the International Publishers Association, which brings together 60 national and regional publishers associations from 50 countries, sent a letter to the Presidential Office, Parliament and Government, expressing their concern and recommending that the Government should cancel the decision regarding book publishing. Though invited and expected at the roundtable meeting, Minister of Culture and Tourism Artur Cozma did not come as he was on a trip. There are 270 institutions in Moldova that published by at least one book, brochure or journal. Fifty of these are autonomous publishing houses. As many as 2,760 book titles had been published in 2007 in 3.421 million copies.