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On Thursday, March 3, several representatives of the civil society and of the media entered the Parliament’s meeting room, asking for accredited journalists (reporters and cameramen) to have free access to plenary meetings for proper coverage of events. As part of the action organized by the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), a flash mob took place in front of the Parliament building, where a symbolic fence was set up – the “press corral”. Participants had placards asking MPs to ensure journalists’ access to the meeting room. Later, some of them went to the Parliament’s meeting room, wearing shirts with the words “Free access for the press!”
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On Wednesday, March 9, the working group on ensuring access of the press to the Parliament’s meeting room gathered for a first working session. It was attended by representatives of the civil society, the media, and the Parliament. The commission tried to identify technical solutions for cameramen’s access to plenary meetings. Proposals included the following solutions: to allocate space for five cameras in one loge and five in the other loge; to maintain live transmissions of plenary meetings; to reduce the number of visitors, and on busy days to prohibit their access to the room in order to allow access to more cameramen etc.
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On Wednesday, March 16, the Parliament’s Standing Bureau accepted civil society and journalists’ requests regarding cameramen’s access to the Parliament’s meeting room. In this context, Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Liliana Palihovici said after the meeting of the Standing Bureau that “in principle” the space had been accepted and cameramen could have access to the room, but she mentioned that “the Bureau finds the proposal on rotation of cameramen in the room insufficiently substantiated, because the space is limited and requests are more than the space allows.”
According to Liliana Palihovici, the Parliament’s Standing Bureau is waiting for the journalists’ proposals on modifying accreditation rules, which currently do not allow cameramen’s access to the plenary meeting room.
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The Independent Journalism Centre sent on March, 28 to the Presidency, the Parliament and the Government a set of recommendations for measures to be undertaken by the authorities in order to counter the phenomenon of concentration of media ownership. Among them – adopting a new Audiovisual Code and amending the Law on Advertisement, the Competition Law and the Law on the Government. This set of recommendations were developed after examining and synthesizing the opinions expressed within the Campaign Stop concentration! conducted by the IJC.
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Seven media organizations - Independent Journalism Center, Association of Independent Press, Association of Electronic Press of Moldova, Center of Journalistic Investigations, “Acces-Info” Center, Association of Independent TV Journalists, Committee of Press Freedom, condemned the case on information access obstruction by the Balti town hall, where the service guard had forbidden, on March 28, the Publika TV team to get audience from the vicemayor Lilia Sava. On March 21, Renato Usatii, the Mayor of Balti, declared to the Publika TV channel that he would not allow those reporters to take part at the City Council’s public meetings, because he dislikes them as they are concerning the city’s matters.
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The civil society - Independent Journalism Center, Association of Independent Press, Association of Electronic Press, Center of Journalistic Investigations, “Acces - Info” Center, Association of Independent TV Journalists, Committee for Press Freedom, Institute of Public Policies, Center of Legal Resources of Moldova, Promo-LEX Association – expressed their concern, on March 4, about the lack of transparency and violation of legislative procedure in the process of amending the Broadcasting Code on February 26, 2016. They qualified these actions of the Parliament as being an attempt to mime reforms and to protect the private interests of some media owners and asked the President of Moldova not to sign the law, returning it to the Parliament for re-examination.
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Some civil and media organizations - Piligrim-Demo, Association of Independent Press, Independent Journalism Center, Association of Electronic Press of Moldova, Center of Journalistic Investigations, “Acces-Info” Center, Association of Independent TV Journalists, Committee of Press Freedom, Gagauzmedia – signed on March 1, a declaration in connection with the situation around the “GagauzRadioTelevizionu” Public Company (GRT). At the meeting of the Supervisory Board (SB) of GRT on February 26, 2016, technical downtime of public television was announced for a period of three months. The signatory organizations considered that this decision has been made in violation of article 80 of the Labor Code of Moldova and prevented that attempts in order to amend the local Gagauz legislation on broadcasting might lead to limitation of the freedom of expression in Gagauzia. On March 17, the governor of Gagauzia promulgated the Law on Television and Radio.
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On Thursday, March 17, participants of the Press Club organized by the Independent Journalism Center discussed whether the current leadership is honest when they declare their willingness to improve the situation in broadcasting. Reason for discussion was the draft of the new Broadcasting Code. Ion Bunduchi, the executive director of APEL Association of Electronic Press, who moderated the event, started by asking several fundamental questions: “What shall we do with domestic broadcasting? What shall we do with concentration in the field? What shall we do with dominating positions in broadcasting?”. Although the civil society qualified the draft law proposed by the Party of Socialists as inconsistent and “contradictory” and asked President Nicolae Timofti not to promulgate the law, according to a participant of the Press Club, Prime Minister Pavel Filip presented it at Brussels as a victory, suggesting that problems in Moldovan broadcasting have been solved.” “Are we simulating reforms or reducing concentration?” journalists wondered.
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Socialist MP Adrian Lebedinschi announced that he had withdrawn his signature from draft law no. 39 on modifying and supplementing the Broadcasting Code of Moldova, adopted by the Parliament in two readings on February 26, 2016. At the same time, as co-author of the draft law, he addressed a message to Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu, asking him “to stop, until the deadline provided by law, the signing of the Law,” and sent a letter to Jose Luis Herrero, head of the Council of Europe Office in Moldova, pleading for “the draft law no. 39 of February 17, 2016 on modifying and supplementing the Broadcasting Code of Moldova no. 260 of July 27, 2006 to be subjected to expert examination.”
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On Thursday, March 17, the Parliament adopted in final reading the law on post, which has been renamed to the Law on Postal Services. According to its authors (Ministry of Information Technology and Communications), the law defines technical regulations and notions characterizing modern postal services in conditions of free market. In early February, the Association of Independent Press (AIP) warned in a letter to the leadership of the Parliament and of the Parliamentary Commission on Mass Media that “the draft law on post contravenes the European Directive on postal services.” ”The law has been modified almost as we asked. We’ll see if any problems with post representatives arise during implementation,” said Petru Macovei, AIP executive director.
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The advocacy campaign of the Independent Journalism Center (IJC) for modifying the law on access to information, which was conducted last year, resulted in the development of a draft law that the IJC sent to the Parliament for examination. On Friday, March 11, the IJC’s draft was registered by a group of non-affiliated MPs and it is now going to be debated in the plenum. According to media law expert Tatiana Puiu, quick adoption of the new modifications is a necessity, and not a whim of the civil society.
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„Ren Moldova” TV channel was sanctioned on Tuesday, 29 th of March, by the Broadcast Coordinating Council (BCC) with the suspension of its right to broadcast advertisement for 72 hours after the monitoring of its programme „Военная тайна” (“The military secret”) which was put on the air in late January and dealt with the political situation in the Republic Moldova. That was not the first time when the BCC imposed a fine to a broadcaster who transmitted propagandistic manipulative messages. In May 2015, a number of TV channels, including Ren Moldova, were imposed the maximum fine of 5,800 lei for repeated breach of the provisions of licensing conditions and for infringement of the national broadcasting legislation.
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The Independent Journalism Centre (IJC) designed new actions intended to promote the media education of the mass-media consumers, particularlyfor school pupils. In this regard, a study will be conducted to identify the opportunities for introducing the media education as a subject in the school curriculum. This initiative of the IJC will be subject to the analysis in the framework of a workshop of the representatives of pre-university education and of the Ministry of Education. In July, the IJC will hold a media hackathon, an event aimed at promoting the critical media consumption, using web or mobile applications, alongside with other innovative tools.
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