Rulers plot closing PRO TV Chisinau: opposition parties

“The rulers plot to close PRO TV Chisinau, as they did with TVR 1,” MP Zoia Jalba, the deputy president of the European Action Movement, stated in the Parliament on Friday. The Liberal-Democrat Party from Moldova (PLDM) issued a similar statement on Friday warning that “on the eve of the electoral campaign, the Communist government tries to deprive the citizens from a credible source of information,” Info-Prim Neo reports. Zoia Jalba has stated that, despite the remarks of international bodies, the Government has intensified its attacks on media. “PRO TV has a special role to play in this fight, as it is the only station objectively mirroring the Moldovan reality, except for DTV,” Jalba said. Referring to the cameraman Mihai Sambra case, the parliamentarian has said: “The fact that the cameraman had to withdraw his complaint from the Prosecutor's office proves once again that nobody can resist the NKVD-like practices and attacks of this structure of the police state of Moldova.” She considers Thursday's attacks of two MPs, whom she styles as being part to the present government, “are part of a diabolic scenario plotted by the present government to stay in power after the 2009 parliamentary elections.” PLDM finds that “the Communist power, jointly with its useful tool – the Christian-Democratic People's Party (PPCD) – have intensified the attacks against the free media.” “Through its interpellation of October 23 in the Parliament, the PPCD offered a pretext to the General Prosecutor's Office, to the Service of Information and Security, to the Finance Ministry, to the Anti-Corruption Center, to the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) to unleash controls at the PRO TV Chisinau. The action is part of the power's scenario to restrict the media's freedom and to intimidate its political opponents,” PLDM states. The party maintains that attack on PRO TV pursues to change its editorial policy and to influence the BCC not to prolong PRO TV's license. “We draw the attention of the European structures, of international missions and foreign diplomatic missions accredited to Moldova to the worsening political climate in this country by harassing the free press and the political opponents, what can definitely compromise the free and fair elections,” the PLDM's statement reads. The PPCD parliamentarian, Stefan Secareanu, Thursday criticized the work of PRO TV Chisinau, in the Parliament, and asked the law-enforcement bodies to investigate who are the owners of the station. MP Vladimir Braga, the leader of the Moldovan Greens, asked the BCC to analyze if the station breeched the electoral law in a program. PRO TV Chisinau has qualified as “a particularly grave accusation, but completely groundless” the statements of Stefan Secareanu that the station would allegedly undermine Moldova's national interests. PRO TV consider the PPCD MP's statements as “lacking any sense”.