Several NGOs boycott meeting with Parliament

Several NGOs from Moldova abstained from attending the conference “Cooperation between the Moldovan Parliament and the Civil Society”, held in the Parliament on Tuesday, December 19. They boycotted the works of the forum in protest against the abuses committed by authorities in the process of implementation of the new Code of Audiovisual, in the case of the municipal stations “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau”, Info-Prim Neo reports. A statement released a day before, signed by the Independent Journalism Centre, Independent Press Association, Electronic Press Association APEL, Access-Info Centre, Media Impact Agency, says that “ONG signing this declaration repeatedly stated about their willingness and openness to collaborate with the Moldovan Parliament, their efforts being directed towards improving the legislative framework on mass-media. Unfortunately, the supreme legislative body ignored most of the proposals, approving decisions based on the interests of the present political power and not of the necessity to develop a professional mass-media in Moldova. Thus, the proposals and the initiatives of the NGOs for improving the Audiovisual Code have not been taken into consideration, and the candidatures have been rejected by the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual, without any reasons and under conditions of lack of transparency”, the statement says. At the very beginning of the conference, representatives of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Moldova, Stefan Uratu and Teodor Carnat left the hall, showing solidarity with media organizations which signed the boycott statement. Before leaving the room, Stefan Uratu proposed that the session is postponed and a joint commission is established in order to analyze the situation at “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau”. The executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, Igor Botan stated that it is the right of each organization to express its protest in its own way: in the street, by boycotting the conference or continuing the debates with the authorities. He also mentioned that he joins the position of his colleagues and the journalists on the issue of abuses committed at “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau”. The executive director of the Institute for Public Policy, Arcadie Barbarosie, also expressed his disagreement with the authorities’ actions in the case of municipal stations, saying that the method currently used for solving the problems related to “Antena C” and “Euro TV Chisinau” is absolutely unacceptable. Besides the appreciation she gave on the issue of the cooperation between the parliament and the civil society, Antonita Fonari, the chairwoman of the Social Network, said that “the general public has the right to have a TV station and a Radio which would reflect correctly the activity of the civil society and authorities”. Several Participants talked about the reduced efficiency of the current cooperation mechanism, saying that the priorities of the civil society and those of the state should be harmonized; a more efficient mechanism of the dialogue with the Government and the representatives of political parties should be found, proposing that the emails of the MPs are introduced for public access on the Parliament’s website. In the context of collaboration between the parliament and the civil society, Speaker Marian Lupu specified the contribution brought by a series of NGOs in working out some important laws, including analyses and debates on the Audiovisual Code, mentioning organizations like ADEPT, IPP, APEL, CIJ, CREDO and IDIS “Viitorul”.