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History of events
15 July. Several journalists who came to attend the traditional working session at the Chisinau City Hall held on Monday at 8:30 a.m., were kept outside the door, and the acting mayor did not give them any explanation. Later, they learned that Adrian Talmaci banned the media from the meetings of the civil servants until local elections. The public and the media representatives were to get information about the results of the meetings from the press releases prepared by the City Hall. The response didn’t take long to appear. On the same day, several TV channels and news portals reported about the restriction of access to information.
16 July. Media organizations responded quickly to this decision, calling it abusive, and reminding the acting mayor that the media law guarantees journalists' right to collect and disseminate information of public interest. The eight signatories of the declaration mentioned that City Hall meetings are public, because topics that have directly to do with the inhabitants of the capital city are discussed there. They made an appeal to the Municipal Council of Chisinau City Hall, the Congress of Local Authorities from Moldova to intervene in solving the problem immediately and unconditionally, ensuring media and any citizens’ access to the meetings held at the local public administration.
17 July. The ban on access to Chisinau City Hall meetings is being discussed on social networks. Ordinary netizens, as well as lawyers or journalists did not approve of the acting mayor's decision. Some believed that such an action by a civil servant could be challenged in court. The lawyer of the Independent Journalism Center requested a copy of the decision of Adrian Talmaci, but the City Hall spokesperson, Vasile Chirilescu informed him that the decision had been taken verbally only.
18 July. Keeping the City Hall meetings public and providing the media and Chisinau inhabitants’ access to these meetings, as well as other requirements are stated in a call signed by a civic activists’ group and several NGOs and published on Thursday, 18 July, on primariamea.md website. The signatories of this call are worried about the decision of the new acting mayor and believe that in the pre-election period this could encourage abuses by the local public authorities.
24 July. The ‘Transparency Protest’ organised by several civil society organisations took place in front of the Chisinau City Hall: ‘OccupyGuguta’, ‘My City Hall’, ‘Extinction Rebellion Moldova’ and ‘TEP - Youth for EcoPlastic’. Adrian Talmaci told the protesters that the Chisinau City Hall had never limited the access of the press to the City Hall and to its planned meetings and that a working meeting would be held the following week on Monday, at 14.00. ‘All press will have access to these meetings’, the acting mayor said.
Note that Adrian Talmaci held until recently the position of Municipal Council Secretary, and became acting mayor after Ruslan Codreanu was dismissed by vote of 36 councilors. According to the law, Talmaci has the obligation to hold this position until another acting mayor is appointed by the local electees or until the local elections scheduled for 20 October.
sursă foto: www. europalibera.org
