The Party of Communists (PCRM) accuses the public television channel Moldova 1 of censorship and intends to mount a protest in front of the building of “Teleradio-Moldova” (TRM) company. It happens after the television station rejected an electoral material of the party, which was to be broadcast free of charge. On the other hand, TRM’s administration said that it had to take this decision because the PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin makes statements that do not match the legal concept of “presentation of electoral programs”, neglecting the prohibition to use free airtime for campaigning against other electoral subjects, IPN reports.
During the first 15 days of the election campaign, parties benefit from 10 free minutes on radio and 5 minutes on television, according to the Regulations on the covering of elections by media outlets, approved by the CEC. “The Party of Communists was warned that political or electoral advertising should contain only materials that exclude misleading, immoral messages, discrimination of any kind, sexist messages, licentious language or insults that harm the honor and dignity of the person, slander, incitement to national, racial or religious hatred between persons,” said the general director of Teleradio-Moldova Vlad Turcanu.
According to him, the company gave the PCRM a period of 12 hours to adjust the content of the submitted material to the provisions of the normative framework and to transmit it for being broadcast at least 24 hours before the time of broadcasting or the institution reserves the right not to put it on the air.
The Party of Communists said it was an unusual case of violation of voters’ rights. “The leadership of Moldova 1 arbitrarily refused to provide free airtime for the pre-election speech of the PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin, addressed to voters in the context of the constitutional referendum of October 20, despite the fact that this is provided by law. The public television channel, which is obliged to be the voice of all citizens, chose to be part of the censorship, flagrantly violating the Electoral Code, which stipulates that all election contestants should have equal access to air,” reads the PCRM’s comment.
The party announced it will mount a protest in front of the TRM’s building on Wednesday, starting at 01:30 p.m.
