Publishing of literature that incites hatred, discrimination and violence will be banned by law

The publishing of literature with anti-constitutional character will be forbidden. The Parliament adopted amendments to the law on editorial activity in first reading on June 5, Info-Prim Neo reports. There will be banned the publishing of literature that defies and defames the state and the people, incites war and aggression, national, racial and religious hatred, discrimination, territorial separatism, public violence as well as other manifestations that challenge the constitutional regime. The ban aroused the dissatisfaction of a number of Opposition MPs. The nonaffiliated MP Vlad Filat, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova, said that such a stipulation is contained in the Constitution of Moldova and this is enough, while the MP of the Moldova Noastra Alliance Gheorghe Susarenco said that the bill is discriminatory and hinders the freedom of expression, the freedom of opinion and the access to information. The new draft law stipulates methods of supporting the publication of books from the state budget and of distributing books to school libraries. The lists of books proposed to be published from state budget funds will be worked out by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, at the proposal of the state publishing houses, and will be later coordinated with the Ministry of Education and Youth and with the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. The lists will be approved by the parliamentary commission for culture, science, education, youth, sport and mass media. The books published from state budget resources will be sent to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Education and Youth, which will distribute them to public and school libraries free of charge and will make exchanges of books with other countries. Up to 5% of these books would be used during important cultural event and activities in the county and abroad. The amendments remove the restrictions that hinder the organizations and foreigners from carrying out editorial activities in Moldova. According to the Minister of Culture and Tourism Artur Cozma, about 150,000 book titles were published in Moldova in 2007. The state order rose to the value of 1 million lei. Forty titles of books written by Moldavien authors will be distributed to all the libraries of the country as part of a project launched in 2006. 18 titles by 4,000 copies each had been already printed and shard out last year.