The new interim director of “Antena C” banned the carrying on of an open doors day at the radio station

The first workday of the new interim director of the municipal radio station “Antena C”, Veaceslav Satnic, was marked by a scandal and by what the journalists of the station called an enclosure of the access to information. Satnic banned the carrying on, on the 16 and 17 of December, of the “open doors” day in the institution. A number of people who tried on Saturday, December 16, to visit the radio station, were stopped by policemen, who banned access into the station. Asked by Info-Prim Neo, Satnic declared that he postponed this event for another date, because on Saturday “Antena C” was to welcome the ex-director Vasile State for the act of handing over of goods. At the same time, Satnic declared that he took this decision because he had not been told of this initiative by the staff. “It would have been normal for me to be told and I don’t think there would have been any problems”, he concluded. Being asked on a number of occasions if he consulted himself with the staff before taking the decision, Satnic avoided a direct answer, mentioning that he does not consider it an opportune moment for “open days”. The vice-director of the “Antena C” station, Ecaterina Stratan, said that Satnic’s decision proves once again that the new administration does not want every citizen to have the right to expression. At the same, she mentioned, this decision infringes the employees’ rights, because the meeting of the staff that decided the organization, on December 16 and 17, of an open door day was held on Friday, deciding that the citizens, listeners of the station, would have the opportunity to come to the station, talk to the journalists, say what they think about the reorganization of the municipal audiovisual, how they see the unfolding of this process, express their opinion on air etc. The staff will not give up and will fight for the right to freedom of expression and pluralism of opinion, stated Ecaterina Stratan. There is a number of policemen at the entrance into the “Antena C” station, who are enclosing the access into the institution. Certain radio listeners were stopped from entering by the policemen, who claim that they received an order from Satnic not to let anyone other than the employees of the station in. In front of the station, as well as across the street from it, there are more policemen and unidentified persons, dressed as civilians. Veaceslav Satnic was appointed interim director of the “Antena C” radio station on Friday, December 15, by the interim mayor Vasile Ursu, on the same day when the decision to sack Vasile State was signed. Satnic activated up to now as chief of the news department of Radio Moldova, function in which he was named by the current president of the “Teleradio Moldova” Company, Ilie Telescu, part of the reorganization linked to its transformation into a public institution and the protests en masse of the TRM journalists in the Summer of 2004, who accused the leadership of the company of getting rid of inconvenient staff and promoting journalists obedient to the current authorities.