The splitting of the press in Moldova started in 2001 and goes on, unaffiliated MP Victor Stepaniuc said during the program “Politics Live” on the public TV channel Moldova 1 on Monday evening, Info-Prim Neo reports. The lawmaker gave as example the publications “Comunistul” and “Timpul”, saying the latter mobilizes the society with great aggressiveness towards the Opposition. Journalist Alexandru Cantar, the chairman of the Committee for the Freedom of the Press, said the press will continue to split until there are newspapers that accept to be used as propaganda instruments. “Surely, all the newspapers have certain political sympathies that are transparent or visible, but they are expressed through comments or editorials, while the news programs should be neutral and impartial. It is lack of respect when the news items are politicized,” Alexandru Cantar said. In the same program, the Liberal-Democrat MP Mihail Shleahtitski said the division of the press should be tolerated as it can enable to get at the truth through the battles of opinion reflected in newspapers. Victor Stepaniuc spoke about the way in which the April 2009 events have been covered. “I was a witness to the April 7 protests. I want to say that a brainwashing campaign was launched several months ago as the entire blame is put on the former Minister of the Interior Gheorghe Papuc and police officers, but the press did not conduct investigations to discover the truth,” he said. Victor Stepaniuc also said that the ruling parties are not different from the previous administration as they also did not establish what really happened on April 7, 2009 and who organized those events. The program's moderator Petru Macovei reminded that Moldova lost 13 cases involving the mass media at the ECHR. One of them was won by Victor Stepaniuc, who had been in litigation with the newspaper Flux. Victor Stepaniuc said the national judges are to blame as they cannot do justice. In 2009, Moldova ranked 114th of 175 countries by the freedom of the press.