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Censorship crackdown: Time is running out for independent news media in Moldova ahead of next year's elections. (File photo)CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - While an opposition politician says that Moldova's broadcast body is a ruled with "constant political interference," the world's leading press freedom NGO slams Moldova for its worsening media climate. Reporters Without Borders publicly declared that the organization is worried about repeated harassment of journalists and news media in the past two months by the Moldovan authorities.
“ - With just one year to go to parliamentary elections, it is vital that Moldova’s journalists should have a better environment in which to work,” the press freedom organization stated in information sent to The Tiraspol Times & Weekly Review.
One of the cases cited by the group is a government campaign against the newspaper Moldavskie Vedomosti which is now threatened with closure by an investigation into alleged corruption. Another case involves the organization that allocates broadcast frequencies, and which openly favors pro-government radio and TV stations.
The Moldovan public prosecutor’s office last month opened a politically motivated investigation into allegations that Moldavskie Vedomosti overcharged a company called Soroca Stone Quarry for advertising. The newspaper has been accused of “misappropriating the property of others in very large amounts.” Anti-corruption investigators have carried out several inspections of the newspaper’s financial records at its headquarters.
Moldavskie Vedomosti editor Dmitri Ciubasenco said he was convinced that “the public prosecutor’s investigation is political” and that it was designed to put pressure on the newspaper and lead to its bankruptcy. He insisted that the contracts he signed were legal and that the payments that were made respected the contracts.
Several Moldovan NGOs said the case was suspicious because Ciubasenco was not notified that criminal proceedings had been opened and was not asked to make a statement at the public prosecutor’s office. In their view, the investigation is just one more stage in a government strategy to reduce the opposition media to silence ahead of next year’s elections. It forms part of a larger government campaign of institutionalized harassment against independent media.
- No new frequencies for independent stations
A number of NGOs and news media issued a joint statement criticising the way the Broadcasting Coordinating Council allocated radio and TV frequencies during a two-day session on 7 and 8 May.
“ - The decisions of Moldova’s Broadcasting Coordinating Council are favoring media concentration by assigning frequencies above all to pro-government radio and TV stations,” the statement says.
Vocea Basarabiei, a Romanian language radio station that has been trying with little success for years to obtain new frequencies in order to expand its coverage, said the Broadcasting Coordinating Council was “distributing frequencies according to political criteria.” The station has obtained only eight of the 120 frequencies it has requested in the past eight years. An independent station affiliated with Radio Free Europe, the BBC, Deutsche Welle and Radio Romania Actualitati, Vocea Basarabiei broadcasts news programmes covering regional, national and international developments as well as entertainment, current affairs and discussion programmes.
An opposition member of the Moldovan parliament, Anatol Taranu said at a news conference: “During its public sessions, the members of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council vote on decisions that have been decided in advance. It is clear that there is constant political interference.”
Moldova scores low in the yearly worldwide press freedom ranking of countries, which is published by Reporters Without Borders annually. Due to its recent crackdowns on free expression, Moldova is now has a media climate which is ranked as less free than Arab states such as Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, and also is considered worse than Haiti, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso and several other of the world's poorest and repressive states.
See also:
» Reporters Without Borders condemns lack of press freedom in Moldova [1]
» Press freedom 2007: Down in Moldova and Ukraine, up in Transdniester [2]
» Moldova opposition says country lacks freedom, democracy [3]