Vladimir Voronin suggests Moldova today fares very badly in terms of human rights.
Asked to describe the state of human rights in our country as it prepares to celebrate its 26th Independence Day, the third President of Moldova stated in an ample interview with IPN:
“What rights? No one has a right today in Moldova, starting from a newborn, because you have to pay a bribe even at the maternity ward. What human rights? Rather, the money is always right. If students don’t offer a bribe, they can’t pass an exam. You can’t get a job in a state institution without money. Wherever you go, you have to pay up.”
He added that state institutions don’t deserve to be called democratic:
“Today these institutions have no right to be called democratic, but rather oligarchic and crooked. I spoke earlier about the ‘captured state’ notion, which applies to these institutions as well. Only if people wake up and realize it one day, can something change.”
The Communist leader offered a solution, however: “In October the Communist Party will celebrate the centenary of the Great Socialist Revolution. We know every detail of how Lenin prepared the revolution and we need to see if such actions are appropriate today or we should use other mechanisms.”
Asked about freedom of the press, a key indicator for a democracy, bearing in mind the Communist government’s own poor score in this department, Voronin said:
“During our government, many TV channels and newspapers appeared, and not a single broadcaster was ever penalized. And even if someone on my team would say that they didn’t agree with something that was published, or that it was a lie, I would always urge them to request retractions or take legal action. There’s more rumor than truth in those allegations, just because we were Communists. And now, is there any freedom of the press? All the press is prostrated under the oligarchs and under those who bought Parliament and created a puppet president”, stated Vladimir Voronin in an ample interview with IPN.