Pro TV qualified the arrest of one of its employee as pressure on its editorial policy

Pro TV Chisinau station protested against the arrest and abusive judiciary inquiry of the sales director of the company, Ghenadie Braghis, and qualified this action as a forgery of the Ministry of Internal Affairs caused by the numerous inquiries of journalists from this channel, that have discovered several flaws in MIA activity or visited the minister Gheorghe Papuc. According to a declaration of the Pro TV Chisinau team, Ghenadie Braghis has been arrested on September 7 under the accusations of bribery, based upon a complaint forwarded a few hours before the arrest by Mihai Balan, director of the Miramond Trans Ltd transportation company. Braghis is now held in custody by the Chisinau General Police Commissariat. The lawyer Vladislav Rosca was granted access to his client only in the evening of the arrest in order to make the official report, after which access was prohibited, although he forwarded 4 requests during September 8. According to the declaration, the authorities motivated the refusals by the lack of free visit rooms in the preliminary detention center, and in the evening the visits were disallowed due to the end of the work day. The same situation repeated on September 9. Rosca forwarded a request to visit his client to the interim general prosecutor of Chisinau municipality, but the Prosecution Office did no reply to the request. Requested by PRO TV Chisinau, the deputy of the general prosecutor, Valeriu Gurbulea, declared that the lawyer has access to his client. According to lawyer Vladislav Rosca, Ghenadie Braghis has been arrested based on a complaint signed by the director of the Miramond Trans Ltd, who intended to buy advertising time on Pro TV Chisinau and claimed that Braghis requested a bribe of USD 1 thousand. But in reality the contact of the requester and the company’s commercial director is not direct, but is mediated by a advertising agency that had the Miramond Trans SRL publicity contract. Therefore, Pro TV claims that Ghenadie Braghis cannot be held responsible for bribery because the conditions of the 333 article from the Penal Code of the Republic of Moldova are not fulfilled. The declaration also points out that during the “Access to information” campaign Pro TV Chisinau broadcasted a story regarding the study diploma of minister Gheorghe Papuc, the vehicles of the MIA and the policemen abuses, news that – according to sources within MIA – upset the minister. Previously, in the press of the Republic of Moldova, articles were published that insinuated the diploma of minister Papuc was forged. Based on the law of access to public information, Pro TV Chisinau requested a copy of the minister’s diploma, yet the request was not fulfilled. According to the same source, this abusive arrest is done by MIA in order to destroy the reliability of Pro TV Chisinau in front of viewers and commercial partners as well. Pro TV Chisinau interpreted this incident as pressure on the company’s editorial policy and required that Ghenadie Braghis is set free.