Citizens struggle with riot police during a protest in Great National Assembly Square, in front of the Arch of Triumph in Chisinau, Moldova, 26 August 2018. Photo: EPA/Doru Dumitru

Moldova’s main media NGOs on Tuesday signed a joint statement, condemning police actions that limited journalists’ right to report on the protests organized on August 26 and 27.

The public protests were organized by the opposition Resistance Movement – ACUM and the pro-Russian Sor Party, which is allegedly working under the command of the ruling pro-EU Democratic Party.

Media NGOs “condemn the abuses that prevented journalists from several media outlets from reflecting the events that took place in the Great National Assembly Square on August 26 and 27, related to the protests and marking 27 years of independence for Moldova,” a statement signed by the eight NGOs said.

Journalists were banned from entering public areas and kept away from some organizers of the meetings, such as the Sor Party leader Ilan Sor, identified in a Kroll report as the main figure in the so-called “grand theft” of a billion US dollars from the banking system between 2012 and 2014.

On August 26, police prevented Sor from being interviewed by reporters in public, as policemen and his own bodyguards pushed and kicked the reporters.

In some other cases caught on camera, journalists carrying their badges were not allowed to do their work and enter public areas.

The protest note signed by media NGOs quoted the criminal code of Moldova, which stipulates that the deliberate impediment of media or journalist activity is a crime.

“Such actions by which journalists are restricted in their rights are incompatible with the provisions of national law and international standards on press freedom,” the signers added.

Cornelia Cozonac, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism in Chisinau, condemned the police’s behaviour.

“Journalists are being prevented from doing their work. It’s already a phenomenon. The Prosecutor’s Office is silent,” Cozonac wrote on Facebook.

A Freedom House report in 2017 referred to Moldovan media as being only partially free, and as widely “controlled by the country’s politically powerful business magnates or oligarchs”.

“Press freedom in Moldova remains constrained by outdated or poorly enforced media laws, as well as the pressure exerted against journalists by government officials, media owners, and others,” it said.

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