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Ivan Burgudji, minority activist and former political prisoner in Moldova, now under arrest again (File photo)

COMRAT (Tiraspol Times) - Acting on what they claimed were personal instructions by the Moldova's Interior Minister Gheorghe Papuc, Moldovan police in Gagauzia arrested human rights leader Ivan Burgudji as he went to cast his vote in Sunday's elections for governor. No warrant was presented and no formal charges were pressed at the time of his detention.

The irregular arrest - which a local Gagauz witness likened to a "kidnapping" - took place in Ciadir-Lunga, the second largest city of Gagauzia, the birthplace of Ivan Burgudji and an autonomous territorial region within the Republic of Moldova.

Representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, were present as election observers but their objections to the arrest were brushed off by the troops and the OSCE was unable to secure the release of Burgudji.

Ivan Burgudji's lawyers were refused contact with their client. Ciadir-Lunga's police chief, Vasiliy Frunze, said that he was acting under Papuc's direct personal orders for the human rights activist to be held in isolation and that he could not permit access to Ivan Burgudji's lawyers. No reason was given for the arrest.

This is not the first questionable arrest of the minority activist. Ivan Burgudji was also beaten and arrested in 2002 by unidentified men carrying state-issue automatic weapons. He was then detained and tortured in a cell in Chisinau, under the former KGB of Moldova. International human rights groups protested this arrest, as did the United States, in an official statement to the OSCE. The abuses by Moldova against Burgudji, and a five year jail sentence which human rights groups saw as an attack on free expression, led to condemnation by the OSCE and the U.S. State Department in its annual Human Rights report.

Voters back pro-independence candidate

Ivan Burgudji supports the candidacy of opposition leader Mihail Formuzal, mayor of Ciadir-Lunga, the second largest city of Gagauzia. Formuzal is in the lead at the elections for governor of Gagauzia, having campaigned on a platform opposed to the central Chisinau authorities which most local voters perceive as heavyhanded in their treatment of the Gagauz minority.

The second round of the elections was held there on Sunday with a turnout of 62%. Formuzal got 53% of the votes, a representative of the Central Electoral Commission told journalists. His rival Nicolai Dudoglo, mayor of the city of Comrat, the capital of Gagauzia, got 47%.

Representatives of Formuzal’s team confirmed his victory after doing a parallel vote counting. In the first round of voting, held on 3 December, Formuzal and Dudoglo went to a run-off by getting 33.89 and 31.4 per cent of the votes, respectively. They both defeated the incumbent head of Gagauzia, Dumitru Tabunscik, who was the official candidate of Moldova's ruling Communist Party and the candidate backed by the central government in Chisinau.

Formuzal, 48, is the leader of the opposition movement “United Gagauzia”. Some of his campaign material was printed in Tiraspol, the capital of Pridnestrovie, in order to shield local printing houses in Gagauzia from harrassment from the Moldovan police.

A member of United Gagauzia, Sergei Dimoglo, was detained by the Moldovan police on November 28 with 5,000 newly printed copies of the newspaper "Gagauz Halki" in his posession at the time of the detention. The newspaper, which supported the candidacy of Mihail Formuzal, had been printed in Pridnestrovie (also known interchangeably as Transdniester and Transnistria). As a result, the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations alerted its members to what it saw as a blatant, unjustiable attack on the freedom of press and on free political debate in Moldova. The OSCE mentioned the confiscation of the newspapers as an example of less-than-democratic conditions in the Gagauz election, and the now-arrested Ivan Burgudji also spoke out about the newspaper confiscation.

" - We shall insist that the Moldovan authorities keep their promise and include in the Constitution an article saying that if Moldova loses its sovereignty, Gagauzia will be given the right to self-determination," said Formuzal in reference to the independence movement of Gagauzia which he represents. His request is similar to a clause which Montenegro included in its agreement with Serbia, and which led to Montenegro's subsequent independence and U.N. membership.

There is no word yet on the conditions of Ivan Burgudji and his lawyers have not been allowed to communicate with him. The last time he was arrested, he was subjected to frequent torture by the SIS, the Moldovan secret service, in a special prison in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

Critical Chisinau radio station silenced one day before the election

In the weeks prior to the election, TV in Gagauzia unexplicably had its transmitting strength lowered, making it impossible for the majority of the population to follow political debates and developments in the election campaign. The OSCE and European election observers criticized this, but the censorship was not restored in time for election day.

One day before the election, a radio station in Chisinau which is critical of Vladimir Voronin's Communist-led government went off the air. Antena-C's broadcasting signal was interrupted Saturday afternoon, prompting sharp criticism from the OSCE who closely monitors Moldovan media censorship.

" - We are extremely concerned about the interruption of Antena-C's broadcasting signal, which deprives people in Chisinau and in large parts of Moldova of an important alternative source of information and analysis," said Louis O'Neill, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova.

" - I urge all those involved to ensure that Antena-C gets back on the air without further delay and guarantee that the station can offer its listeners comprehensive and balanced programming that respects the principles of pluralism and freedom of expression." (With information from Itar-Tass, OSCE)

See also:
» Human rights leader: "Elections in Gagauzia (Moldova) contrast badly with Transdniestria's" [1]