Romanian TV Outlet B1TV fined after Host Offended Moldovans

The B1 TV outlet was fined RON 10,000 by the National Broadcasting Council (NBC) of Romania after a TV host, Radu Banciu, verbally abused the citizens of the Republic of Moldova. According to Gândul.info, during the TV show Banciu’s World (Romanian – Lumea lui Banciu), on 24 December, Banciu called Moldova a gipsy begging from Romania.

During the show, Radu Banciu said that Moldova’s Prime Minister Iurie Leanca is a “good-for-nothing” and that “Generally, Moldova is exactly like a Romanian gipsy begging on Champs-Élysées (...). This is Moldova. A peasant or a gipsy, as you wish, who has done nothing but beg from Romania since we know them.” Banciu also used abusive language to speak about the young people studying in Romania.
 

At a meeting on Monday, members of the NBC asked Rares Anita, a representative of B1 TV, to comment on this show. The outlet’s representative claimed that Banciu had expressed his own opinion and that, despite some language errors, the show “fell into the limits of opinion, of free expression.” Christian Mititelu, a member of the NBC, said, however, that he found inadmissible the manner in which Radu Banciu expressed his opinion about the people of Moldova.
 
The fine of RON 10,000 (equal to MDL 39,000) applied to the television outlet received six “for” and five “against” votes.