The authorities from Tiraspol amended the local legislation in order to shut down an ‘inconvenient’ newspaper

The ‘Profsoyuznye Vesti’ (Trade Union News) newspaper ceased to exist. The owner and editor-in-chief, Ludmila Covali, believes that the authorities from Tiraspol had their revenge against her because the publication did not support the current authorities in the last election.
In a recent post on a social network, Ludmila Covali bids farewell to her readers, after 25 years she devoted to the ‘Profsoyuznye Vesti’ newspaper from Tiraspol. According to her, it’s not just the fact that the newspaper got shut down, but rather the way this was done.

The journalist stated for Media-azi.md that the Federation of Trade Unions from the left bank of Nistru River had proposed a legal initiative in order to prohibit the use of the word union and its derivatives in the name of the publication. Therefore, by the end of 2017, the unrecognised authorities from Tiraspol amended the local legislation, making it mandatory for the organisations that want to use the word union in their names to ask for the consent of the Federation of Trade Unions. ‘We contacted them, on January 29th of this year, in order to obtain the consent, but they denied it to us. On February 2nd, the Board of the Federation of Trade Unions voted against granting our newspaper the right to use the word union and thus sealed the fate of our publication’ stated the editor-in-chief of the “Profsoyuznye Vesti” newspaper’

Ludmila Covali affirms that the problems started right after the current government won the election. As she said, on the next day after the election she was asked to leave the editing team of the newspaper and this pressure was the result of the critical attitude of the publication towards the local government for years. At the same time, the journalist mentioned that the representatives of Tiraspol government discouraged multiple organisations, influenced them not to subscribe to their newspaper. Because of this, the circulation of the publication halved in the last year and amounted to only 1,500 copies per issue. ‘This law was passed in order to destroy our newspaper and clean the information field of the region of an inconvenient voice’ Ludmila Covali stated. In her opinion, there are few independent media left in the region – ‘it’s just the “Dobryi Deni” newspaper from Rybnitza and the broadcasting company “Novaya Volna”, whose director is the journalist Grigori Volovoi’.
When Media-azi.md contacted him to comment on this case, Grigori Volovoi qualified it as ‘score settling’. ‘In my opinion, they did so in order to oust Ludmila Covali, an inconvenient journalist, from the position of editor-in-chief. In order to destroy the newspaper, they amended the legislation with the support of the Supreme Soviet. It is a dangerous case, which shows that the ones holding the power are ready to use any means in order to constrain the rights and freedoms of the journalists and the work of the media in the region’ stated Grigori Volovoi for our portal.