“United for press freedom. The truth cannot be suppressed!” This is the slogan under which a number of journalists of the country’s editorial offices demonstrated on Friday in front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Chisinau, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day. They signaled the negative consequences of the war on press freedom, but also commemorated fellow journalists who lost their lives while doing their jobs, IPN reports.
According to Nadine Gogu, executive director of the Independent Journalism Center, journalists gather for the third consecutive year in front of the Russian Embassy in Chisinau to protest both against the war that the Russian Federation has waged on Ukraine and against the war propaganda machine that is operated from Moscow and targets the states of the former Soviet space, but also some countries of the European Union.
“We condemn the Kremlin’s restrictive policies against the free press and, at the same time, we stand in solidarity with independent Russian journalists whose fundamental rights are restricted, violated and who, simply by trying to do their job honestly, risk long jail terms,” stated Nadine Gogu.
She also said that the Memorandum on the Freedom of the Press 2024 was recently launched, which indicates the problems, but also the progress made in the past year related to freedom of expression. It also goes to the slightly modified legislative framework, which, once it is implemented, should make journalists’ lives easier. Last year saw fewer abuses of journalists resulting in physical attacks on them. At the same time, there are also cases of verbal aggression against journalists, limitation of the access to information, censorship. Traditionally, the Memorandum recommends the authorities to come up with measures that would eliminate the existing problems.
