To fight information propaganda on Moldova’s territory, it wasn’t actually necessary to amend the Broadcasting Code as the regulatory body of the state should only have fulfilled its duties and shouldn’t have allowed foreign propaganda to cause havoc on Moldova’s territory, stated Igor Botan, executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy “ADEPT”.
In the public debate “Anti-propaganda law”: necessity, advantages and risks”, staged by IPN News Agency and Radio Moldova, the standing expert of IPN’s project said the name “anti-propaganda law” is a popular one, related to the context of the situation in the region, but the informative note to the bill does not explain what this situation is determined by. “We can guess that this is related to a regional conflict and in such a situation this thing should be mentioned. The situation in the region has a special connotation after the Constitutional Court on May 2 last year passed a judgment concerning the occupation of the territory on the left side of the Nistru by the Russian Federation. This is the context to which the authors of the informative note and of the draft law refer to,” stated the expert.
He explained that the goal of propaganda by definition is to promote concertedly particular doctrines and messages and to influence the public opinion by not exactly Orthodox manipulation methods so that those who are subject to the “propagandistic shooting” share the ideas promoted by those that resort to this. “The law clearly defines the reasons. The national security strategy is invoked and the country’s information security is a very important aspect for fighting propaganda, but we have to guess from the informative note where this propaganda comes from. I accept the idea and am sure that there is foreign propaganda on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. I can bring examples that dramatically influence the situation in Moldova. We now also see the draft law of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, which contains threats against Moldova and the possible measures that could be applied,” stated Igor Botan.
In the same connection, the executive director of ADEPT said the direct beneficiaries of the retransmission of the Russian TV channels on Moldova’s territory have names and concrete financial benefits. “Things have a very specific connotation and should be placed in a very interesting context. Propagating something useful to society is not condemnable. But what distorts a situation should be stopped,” he noted.
The public debate “Anti-propaganda law”: necessity, advantages and risks” was the 86th installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are held with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
