A number of journalists on March 10 protested in front of the Parliament Building, where they put up a fence on which they placed the message “We want access to Parliament”. This way the journalists protested at the hampering of the free access to the assembly hall, IPN reports.
Olga Tiganescu, who is a member of the Independent Journalism Center, said the event forms part of a campaign launched in 2014. The fence, which is called the ‘press fold’, is installed when plenary sittings take place. “We do this in a move to inform the media consumers, society objectively and correctly. The journalists should be able to choose themselves what they want to film and whose opinions they want to get, not only the images that are made available by the Parliament director,” she stated.
Olga Tiganescu also said that the protests will continue until the Standing Bureau amends the Parliament’s Regulations so that the journalists have free access to the assembly hall.
Independent Journalism Center member Zinaida Gheata said that even if the cameramen will now be able to enter the assembly hall, they will have to meet a series of conditions. “We hope that we will ultimately obtain access to the Parliament’s assembly hall and this is the reason why we are now here. We hope we will be heard and the negotiations held now will end positively for the journalists,” she stated.
On March 10, the working group on the access of the press to the Parliament’s assembly hall decided to allow the cameramen to enter the hall as an experiment. These will sit on two balconies of the hall because the number of places is limited. Representatives of civil society and the mass media are to agree a rotation mechanism so that all the TV channels could have their own images.
