The media NGOs condemn the intimidation of RISE Moldova journalist and ask the Ministry of Internal Affairs to take action on this case

The media organisations are concerned about the intimidation and threats made by the coordinators of ‘Sfantul Gheorghe’ Charitable Foundation and crowdfunding platform Caritate.md against RISE Moldova journalist Liuba Sevciuc.
 
Thus, after RISE posted on Sunday, 18 February, a teaser video of an investigation about possible scams involving the said Foundation on its Facebook page, the photo of journalist Liuba Sevciuc was posted on the homepage of the crowdfunding portal Caritate.md with the statement “We ask her for help”.

Moreover, according to media information, the co-founder of the above Foundation, Svetlana Sainsus, explained that by this gesture she redirected people to the right person to help them and the ‘founder decided to do so for several days’. Later on, Svetlana Sainsus continued to intimidate the journalist on a social network, using indecent language.

We qualify this case as an act of incitement to hatred and intimidation of the RISE Moldova journalist, Liuba Sevciuc, the author of the investigation ‘Bani din caritate“ [“Money from Charity”], published on Monday, 19 February.

We note that the Law on Freedom of Expression provides in Article 4 that the media has the duty to inform the public on matters of public interest and perform journalistic investigations in accordance with its responsibilities.

We remind in this context that words or acts that attack a person’s dignity are subject to contravention liability (Article 69 of the Contravention Code). And the intimidation of the media or the journalist for criticism are sanctioned by the Criminal Code (Article 180¹).

We request the Ministry of Internal Affairs to take actions on this case to hold the persons guilty of violating the above-cited articles accountable under the law, and to stop the verbal attacks against the journalist Liuba Sevciuc.

In addition, we ask ‘Sfantul Gheorghe’ Charitable Foundation and crowdfunding platform Caritate.md to publicly apologize to the journalist Liuba Sevciuc.

We call on the entire society not to impede the conduct of journalistic investigations on matters of public interest.  
 
Independent Journalism Center
Association of Independent Press
Association of Electronic Press
Centre for Investigative Journalism
Press Freedom Committee  
Association of Independent TV Journalists 
‘Access-info’ Centre