The new regulations cornering the punishment of hate speech in the election campaign are designed to protect the participants in the process from denigrating campaigns, secretary of the Central Election Commission Alexandru Berlinschii stated in a public debate held by IPN.

“Until now, hate speech was penalized by the legislation, but wasn’t clearly specified in an electoral context. In principle, at the current stage we should not encounter particular problems in the implementation of the law. Article 70 of the Electoral Code clearly specifies the rights of persons who campaign, their obligations in election campaigns. Respectively, the amendments to the Contravention Code weren’t aimed at hampering election contenders or participants in the electoral process, at preventing them from conducting a correct election campaign. On the contrary, they come to guarantee clear rules that are to be respected for all the participants in the election campaign,” stated Alexandru Berlinschii.

The CEC secretary noted that the new regulations offer increased safety that denigrating campaigns against some of the participants with the use of methods banned by law will not be conducted. Hate speech, sexist speech, involvement of religious denominations weren’t permitted by the previous electoral legislation and penalties for these are now stipulated. The observance of the legislation cannot be ensured without legal instruments for punishing violations of this legislation.

Alexandru Berlinschii also said that the legislative amendments were made to improve the situation, not to limit particular rights of election runners. Moreover, conditions are created for the electoral process to be more inclusive. “As regards the language in which the ballots are to be printed, the Electoral Code earlier didn’t regulate this aspect. Now the Electoral Code clearly stipulates that when requests from local electoral bodies come, the Central Election Commission will decide to print ballots in Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Russian or the languages of other ethnic communities that live in our country. I note this because we aim to organize more inclusive elections and all the voters should have access to polling stations,” said Alexandru Berlinschii.

The public debate entitled “Hate speech prohibited and penalized, novelty at November 5 elections” was staged by IPN News Agency in the framework of the project “Stimulation of mass media discussion about traditional particularities of local elections and the need for Europeanization” which is supported by Soros Foundation Moldova.