A number of media NGOs demand that the acting minister of the interior should explain publicly why the police didn’t intervene when two crews of journalists were being ill-treated during the protest staged before the house of Vlad Plahotniuc. “We are profoundly concerned about the more often cases of physical and verbal abuse against journalists on duty, during events of public interest,” says a statement signed by the media NGOs, quoted by IPN.

The statement says the media reported that the crews of Jurnal TV channel and of the news portal Omega were attacked during a protest last Friday, when the journalists were at the scene of a protest staged in front of the house of the first deputy head of the Democratic Party Vlad Plahotniuc. At a certain moment, a number of persons in civvies approached the protesters and the two camps got into a clash. Jurnal TV tried to film the scene, but the persons in civvies ill-treated the cameraman.

The crew of Omega was mistreated when trying to film in the yard of the block where Vlad Plahotniuc lives and its camera was destroyed. The abuses were committed before the police, which didn’t intervene.

The media NGOs ask the Ministry of the Interior and personally acting minister Oleg Balan to swiftly investigate this case and to explain publicly why the police preferred to passively watch how the journalists were being attacked instead of protecting them. They also demand identifying and punishing those who ill-treated the two crews.

The statement was signed by the Independent Press Association, the Association of Electronic Press of Moldova, the Center “Acces-Info”, the Journalistic Investigations Center, and the Association of Independent TV Journalists.