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Monthly Bulletin, January 2020
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On January 21, the Deputy Mayor of Balti, Nicolai Grigorisin, refused to answer questions from NordNews.md reporters regarding a protest in front of the Balti Mayor’s Office. The protesters demanded offcial records of spending MDL 200,000, which local authorities claimed were allocated for the repair of three toilets on the fourth floor of the institution’s headquarters. Mayor Grigorisin responded: “You are a toxic media institution. We can tell you nothing.”
Eight media NGOs (Independent Journalism Center, Association of Independent Press, Association of Electronic Press, Center for Investigative Journalism, Press Freedom Committee, Association of Independent TV Journalists, “Access-Info”, Center RISE Moldova) jointly signed a declaration condemning the behavior of Mayor Grigorisin and called on civil servants of all levels to adopt more appropriate behavior towards journalists. They stressed the journalist’s right to inform citizens on matters of public interest and that any attempt to prevent them from exercising their duties is a violation of the law.
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Media NGOs are concerned about anonymous threats to journalists and their editorial offices. They requested the Ministry of Internal Affairs to identify the individuals responsible for making anonymous threats to journalists, and to sanction them in accordance with the law.
Cornelia Cozonac, Director of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJM), received a letter in which she was intimidated and threatened with physical violence. The sender used the name of the CIJM journalist Elena Bancila. In another case, an unknown individual sent a letter containing DVDs with different viruses to the editorial offices of Ziarul de Garda and of Deschide.md portal from a CIJM address. This time the sender used the name of another CIJM journalist – Mariana Colun. Both Cornelia Cozonac and Mariana Colun reported the identity theft to the police.
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On January 20, the Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo stated at a press conference that the Exclusiv Media criminal prosecution case had an “unplanned and inconsistent character for more than three years.” The criminal trial, targeting the company of the Socialist deputy Corneliu Furculita with allegations of money laundering, is currently at criminal prosecution stage and was started in the summer of 2016. According to the General Prosecutor’s Office, the investigation also targets other members of the Socialist Party. Stoianoglo highlighted that only one criminal prosecution was carried out in 2016-2017, and none during 2018-2019.
Exclusiv Media’s involvement in offshore transactions was revealed by RISE Moldova journalists in September 2016. According to the investigation, over MDL 30 million went to this company. The money entered Moldova a few months before the October 2016 presidential elections. According to RISE, the transfer was made through an off-shore company in the Bahamas associated with Russia. Corneliu Furculita said that all transactions of the companies mentioned in the article took place in accordance with national and international law. |
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On December 27, Igor Chaika, businessman and youngest son of Prosecutor General of Russia, acquired 51% shares in the Media Invest Service, which was the founder of Telesistem SRL and owns broadcast licenses for Primul in Moldova and Accent TV. Chaika is also Ambassador of the “Delovaia Rossia” Business Association in Moldova and Transnistria. He is also involved in the work of the Russian-Moldovan Economic Council. Earlier, the Russian Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation that questioned whether the businesses of Igor Chaika were obtained legally. Igor Chaika denied these allegations. Vadim Ciubara, the Moldovan ex-owner of the Media Invest Service, is now the Director General with 49% shares.
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Primul in Moldova, which broadcasts the content of Pervii Kanal from Russia, and TVR Moldova, which broadcasts the content of the Romanian TVR channel, obtained the right to use national frequencies in the analogue terrestrial format. On December 30, the Broadcasting Council (BC) unanimously made this decision. The representative of Primul in Moldova said that Russian Pervii Kanal required that the partner channels hold national frequencies. The representative of TVR Moldova mentioned that the Romanian Television Society intended to expand its area of coverage in Moldova. Dragos Vicol, the BC Chair, stated this was a moral debt paid for the injustice committed in 2007, when the frequency was taken from TVR Moldova. This decision was made despite the fact that Moldova committed to cancel broadcast in analogue format in order to switch exclusively to digital broadcasting by March 2020.
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Telestar Media, which holds broadcasting licenses for Canal 2 and Canal 3 TV channels now has a new owner - Lilian Bustiuc. Oleg Cristal, former employee of Vlad Plahotniuc, is an ex-manager of Telestar Media. Previously Lilian Buștiuc managed other media assets in the holding company of the former PD leader. He refused to become founder and manager of the Media Content Distribution (MCD). MCD owns the broadcast rights for the Canal 5 TV channel and the Maestro FM radio station.
Media experts are suspicious about the ownership transfer. Both Cristal and Buștiuc are close to Plahotniuc. Petru Macovei, Executive Director of Association of Independent Press (API), believes that Plahotniuc is securing his properties by re-registering them. Macovei commented: “He is probably afraid that his people could be monitored.” |
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On December 27, a new amendment to the Media Services Code that obligates cable operators and other distributors to remove advertising and teleshopping from rebroadcast foreign audiovisual content entered in force. The amendment is aimed to protect the local market from pervasive advertising by rebroadcast channels such as Discovery, National Geographic, etc.
The author of the amendment is the Chair of Parliamentary Committee for Media Adrian Lebedinschi. According to Lebedinschi, the broadcast of pervasive advertising (paid from another country) would have “negative effects on the advertising market and significantly affect the activity of the media service providers (especially those under the jurisdiction of Moldova).” Vitalie Bujnita, the Head of Control and Digitization Department at the Broadcasting Council, told Media-azi.md that the authorities are going to conduct inspections to ensure compliance with the new regulation. |
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On January 23, the Broadcasting Council (BC) failed to elect a member of the Supervisory Board (SB) of the Teleradio-Moldova Company. The position has been vacant for almost ten months. The two candidates, Alexandru Grosu and Igor Matveiciuc, did not get a sufficient number of votes. Igor Matveiciuc received no votes, and Alexandru Grosu was supported by only four BC members. After failing to select a candidate, the BC announced a new competition for the position. However, this time the BC needs to fill three positions, given that the mandates of two additional SB members – Nicolae Spataru and Marina Turcan – have also expired.
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The December 2019 edition of the Mass Media in Moldova magazine reviewed the main subjects that dominated the media during the second half of 2019. Journalist Vitalie Calugareanu noted that with the weakening of Plahotniuc’s media holdings following his departure from Moldova and from the leadership of the Democratic Party, another media holding company affiliated with the Socialists and President Dodon is strengthening its position in the media sector. Speaking of the concentration in the audiovisual field, Calugareanu claims that it was a mistake not to restructure the Broadcasting Council after the fall of the former regime in June 2019. Because of this, the Council was left in the hands of President Dodon. Other materials in the magazine covered the need to align the national law with international standards, the biased behavior of the media during local elections, the wiretaps and dismissals at Moldpres, and the crisis in print media that resulted in the closure of several prestigious publications. The Mass-Media in Moldova magazine is issued twice a year, in Romanian, English and Russian, in electronic and print versions.
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According to the latest Public Opinion Barometer (POB) by the Institute for Public Policy (IPP) for December 2019, Moldovan citizens have the highest trust in national media sources (60%). The media from the European Union (EU) ranks second (50%), followed by media from Russia (48%) and Romania (40%). Russian sources have the highest level of distrust (over 40%). According to the survey, TV (49.4%) and Internet (33.8%) are the most important sources of information in Moldova. The radio ranks the third with 5.2%. In addition, television is the most trusted source of information (29.9%). Moldova 1, Prime TV and Jurnal TV are the three most preferred information sources. A POB sociological survey sampled 1,187 respondents in Moldova, excluding the districts on the left bank of the Nistru River.
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Information about the beneficiaries of the Law on Voluntary Compliance and Tax Incentives (Tax Amnesty Law) will be made available for media. The former provision, which provided access to tax data to only three entities (the National Integrity Authority, Office for Prevention and Fight against Money Laundering and the individual taxpayer), was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court on December 12.The decision follows a judgement by the Chisinau Court (Rascani sector) at the request of the NGO Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR). In October 2018, LHR requested the State Tax Service to provide names of individuals who voluntarily declared their assets, the value of those assets, the total amount of taxes collected by the state budget following the declarations, and the nominal list of the taxpayers who benefited from tax incentives. The State Tax Service refused to provide data, arguing that the media and NGOs were not on the list of entities with right to access this information. LHR challenged the answer before the Court, resulting in a favorable ruling.
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Broadcasting Council (BC) Chair Chair Dragos Vicol claims that it will request an amendment of relevant legislation to ensure that foreign citizens cannot own controlling stock in the ownership structure of Moldovan radio and TV stations. The request was triggered when Russian millionaire Igor Chaika became co-owner of the company that controls Primul in Moldova and Accent TV channels. The BC proposes to ban foreigners from owning more than 50% shares in order to protect editorial policies from external influence. BC members will develop a set of proposals for the Parliamentary Committee for Mass-Media.
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NGO WatchDog notified the BC that RTR Moldova, Ren Moldova and Primul in Moldova broadcast the New Year’s message of the Russian President Vladimir Putin and requested the outlets be sanctioned. WatchDog believes that the broadcast of Putin’s message interfered with the security of the information space in Moldova. The BC rejected the complaint at its meeting on Thursday, January 30, stating that the televisions did not violate the law. BC Chair Dragos Vicol believes that the Russian President’s message was not a militarist speech that would incite hatred or attack Moldovan sovereignty. Previously, the BC fined Prime TV channel on the basis of another notification filed by WatchDog for MDL 70,000 (3500 euros). In that case, the BC judged that the broadcasting of a militarist speech by Putin constituted a violation of the Anti-Propaganda Law.
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A twenty minute film, in which President Dodon listed his achievements over the course of his three-year mandate, was broadcasted by the public TV channel both at 12pm and during evening primetime on December 23. The video sparked criticism on social media, and was considered to be propaganda for the Socialist party. Supervisory Board (SB) member Larisa Calugaru asked the SB to comment on this subject, stating that the video did not reflect the work of the President, but rather the work of the PSRM in support of Dodon. The SB member accused the Director of Moldova 1, Ecaterina Stratan, of acting in accordance with external interests and of exceeding her duties when she intervened in the broadcast schedule to allow the film to be aired. During the SB’s meeting, Stratan said that she received a call from the Presidency with a request to show the President’s three-year activity report. The President of Teleradio-Moldova claimed that she was not informed about this change in the broadcast schedule. Following the discussions, SB members did not make any decision on this subject.
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In January, Media Center completed its activities under the “Media Freedom Matters” small grants program, which is party of the MEDIA-M Project, funded by USAID and UK aid, and implemented by Internews and Freedom House in Moldova. Media Center supported five filmmakers from Moldova’s regions to develop short documentaries depicting local perceptions of freedom of expression and the media. On January 29, Media Center held a final film screening with the filmmakers and members of civil society and the media community to discuss the documentaries. The documentaries have been submitted to several local and international film festivals, and will be available for public viewing in summer 2020.
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In the recent months, Moldova has witnessed the expansion of PSRM-affiliated media holdings. Some claim that even the public channel Moldova 1 is becoming increasingly loyal to the Socialists. The member of the Broadcasting Council, Corneliu Mihalache, commented on the Media Azi show about this and other developments on Moldova’s media landscape. She also spoke on what role the BC should play in this situation to assert itself as a guarantor of the public interest.
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