IHF FOCUS: national
human rights protection (human rights defenders); elections; freedom of
expression, free media and information; independence of the judiciary and right
to a fair trial; torture, ill-treatment and police misconduct; freedom of religion
and religious tolerance; national and ethnic minorities: right to education.
Widespread human rights violations continued across
In the aftermath of the 2003 local elections, which were riddled with
serious irregularities, the OSCE/ODIHR and the Council of Europe’s Venice
Commission in July 2004 submitted to the Moldovan government an analysis of the
election problems and a set of recommendations on how to avoid similar problems
in the upcoming 2005 parliamentary elections. The Moldovan authorities,
however, failed to address most of these recommendations.
Freedom of the media deteriorated in 2004 principally due to a
government crackdown on and subsequent firing of employees at the public
broadcaster Teleradio
Moldovan police and other law enforcement agents continued to use
torture and ill-treatment as a common investigation method to extract
“confessions, which were then used as evidence in courts. The cases of abuses
usually went unpunished.
While the Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, there was
pressure from authorities on courts, and widespread corruption among judges
remained a serious problem. The public regarded the judiciary as one of the
most corrupt public sectors.
Registration of religious communities remained a
problem; for example, no Muslim groups had been registered by the end
of 2004. Religious minority groups faced harassment, and the situation was
especially bad in the breakaway region of Transdniestria.
In Transdniestria, measures taken in 2004 reflected the hardening policy
toward the Moldovan/Romanian minority. Raids were carried out in schools that
continued to use Latin script (instead of Cyrillic) in teaching, excessive use
of force was commonplace, and attacks against what Trandniestrian authorities
perceived as opposition forces continued, including acts against human rights
defenders. The longstanding lack of separation of powers between the
legislative, executive and judiciary was still a general hindrance to the
advancement of human rights. The situation in Transdniestria continued to have
a negative effect on the social, economic and political stability in the whole
of the
Human
Rights Defenders
In
Transdniestria, the local “Ministry of State Security” posed restrictions on
civil society activities, especially if they concerned human rights. All
non-governmental activities, such as conferences and training sessions, were to
be coordinated with local authorities. The organizers were required to submit
to the “ministry” the program of their meetings, a list of participants, and
the names of the hotels they were staying at. Failing to do this meant that the
event was illegal.
·
Members of
the Moldovan Helsinki Committee (MHC, IHF member) were harassed on 1 July in
Tiraspol, the capital of Transdniestria, by a group of protesters who opposed
the organization of the training program “Techniques of Monitoring the Violations of Human
Rights” that was scheduled to start that day. They
accused Stefan Uritu, the chairman of the MHC, along with a group of human
rights activists and several journalists, of terrorism and referred to a
sentence passed against Uritu by a Transdniestrian tribunal in 1992. Several
protesters threw bags with curdled milk and paint at him. The Transdniestrian
law enforcement authorities did nothing to stop the incident. Later on, militia officers forced
Uritu into a car and escorted him out of the Transdniestrian territory citing
personal security reasons. In addition, the administrators of the cafe
Plăcinta, which had accepted to host the training, were summoned by the
·
Following the
above-mentioned incident, Transdniestrian human rights activists who wanted to
cooperate with the MHC, including Nicolae Bucheatky and Alexandr Radchenko,
were repeatedly threatened and attacked. For example, the doors of their
apartments were smeared with a stinking chemical substance, squibs were thrown
at their apartments, defamatory graffiti was written on the walls and windows
of their apartment buildings, and libellous leaflets about their activities
were distributed. After having published human rights related articles in
Moldovan papers, they received death threats. During the pre-election campaign
to the 2005 parliamentary elections in Ukraine, both of them were physically
attacked and threatened because of their support of Viktor Yushchenko and because they had distributed campaign
materials for him. During the night of 27 and 28 December, the door of Buchatky’s
apartment was set on fire. Later, on 30 December, indelible red color was
thrown at his face. Militia officers, who were nearby, failed to take any
action.
·
Oxana Alistratova,
director of the Transdniestrian human rights organisation Interactiv, was also
subjected to intimidation and psychological pressure by local security agents.
Her organization has been active in TMR since 2002. On 16 June, an officer of
the “Ministry of National Security” summoned her without any reason. At the
meeting with the “ministry,” where she was accompanied by her ten-year-old
daughter, she was subjected to interrogation about her organisation, its
funding, and her participation in various activities. She was also accused of
collaboration with the secret services of the
While no elections were held in
Following the 2003 local elections, the OSCE/ODIHR and the Council of
Europe’s Venice Commission in June 2004 made recommendations to the government
of Moldova on how the Electoral Code and the election administration should be
amended to ensure that the next elections would be conducted in line with
European and OSCE standards for free, fair and democratic elections.[2]
According to the OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission, the most important
improvement would be to remove all doubts regarding an impartial judiciary so
that legal steps against candidates should not be able to cast doubt upon the
electoral process. As for the legal framework, the two organizations
recommended, among other things, that better mechanisms be set up to secure the
secrecy of the vote; the representation threshold for parties and blocks (6% and
9-12%, respectively) be lowered; the composition of the Central Election
Commission (CEC) be changed to ensure a proportional representation of
political parties; the registration criteria for political parties be altered;
a better procedure be developed for the scrutiny of voter lists; better
safeguards be provided in the law to ensure that records of every step in the
vote count are kept; clearer obligations be established for publishing detailed
results of polling stations immediately and as part of the full tabulation;
more detailed rules be established for use of public infrastructure during
campaigns; and that the editorial coverage of the incumbents in electronic
media during the campaign be better regulated.[3]
On the basis of the recommendations, the obligation for political parties
to annually submit their membership lists to the Ministry of Justice was
abolished, and the mandatory minimum number of members for the registration of
a party was brought down from 600 to 150 per rayon (administrative unit) in at least half of Moldova’s 32
rayons.
Nevertheless, recommendations for many fundamental revisions of the code
were not implemented. These recommendations included a proposal to change the
composition of the CEC. In addition, the failure to address many other
recommendations gave rise to concern regarding the respect of the rights of all
candidates to campaign freely, the guarantee of secrecy of the vote, the
transparency and accuracy of counting and tabulation of votes, and the unbiased
operation of the mass media.
During the 2003 local elections, the vice mayor of Chisinau and the former
mayor of Vadul lui Voda left Moldova because of intimidation and harassment
during the election campaign. They did not return to Moldova since criminal
proceedings were initiated against them on charges of corruption and abuse of
power and arrest warrants had been issued against them.
Toward the end of 2004, criminal charges that were believed to be
politically motivated were brought against some opposition leaders before the
launch of the 2005 election campaign.
·
Serafim Urechean, the leader of the opposition Bloc Moldova Democrata (BMD)
was charged with corruption before the parliamentary election campaign
started. The suspicion that the charges
were politically motivated was supported by the release by the BMD of a video
made by an officer in the Center for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption
(CCCEC), in which he spoke of pressure from the highest levels of the state to
bring unsubstantiated charges against Urechean.
The most serious
violation against media freedoms in 2004 was the governmental crackdown on
Teleradio Moldova, the country’s public broadcaster. In July, all employees of
Teleradio Moldova were scrutinized for re-employment, with the consequence that
many were not hired again. Among those first to be fired were members of the
so-called anti-censorship committee that was created among the company’s
employees in 2002 to fight unofficial censorship in the public TV and radio.
The persons who were not re-hired included TV editor Angela Arama as well as TV
reporters Corina Fusu and Viorica Cucereanu.
On 27 July, 40
journalists went on strike to protest the re-employment policy of Teleradio
Moldova and general unofficial censorship by the government. On the same night,
19 of the protesters were suspended from work indefinitely. During the
following five days, police forcibly removed protesters from the spot. However,
the strike continued throughout August and September, with six reporters
starting a hunger strike that was joined by five veterans of the
Transdniestrian war. On 1 August, the group attempted to set up tents in front
of Teleradio Moldova headquarters where the strike had moved to, but police
hindered them from doing so despite the fact that city authorities had
sanctioned it. Numerous strikers were injured during this police action.
Protests continued also later in the year on a regular basis in front of the
parliament.
Throughout 2004, the
media was under unofficial and indirect governmental censorship that took the
form of administrative, economic, and judicial pressure. Administrative
pressure was used especially against journalists working for public electronic
and printed media such as Teleradio Moldova and the newspapers Moldova Suverana, and Nezavisimaia Moldova. The managers of
these media outlets punished their journalists (for example, with pay cuts) who
did not respect the “corrections” made by the ruling party.
Judicial censorship
was applied through courts, which were subordinated to the executive power.
Most independent newspapers (for example, Jurnal
de Chisinau, Ziarul de Garda, Moldavskie Vedomosti, Flux, Timpul de Dimineata,
etc.) faced trials initiated by political leaders or powerful businessmen for
defamation. The newspaper Timpul lost
a trial and was forced to change its name and juridical status. Several members
of parliament (for example, V. Stepaniuc and Iu.Rosca), and members of the
government (for example the Minister of Internal Affairs Gh. Papuc) and other
high state officials filed defamation charges against newspapers for legitimate
criticism of their activities or allegations of corruption.
§
The newspaper Timpul wrote on 16 January about the
misuse of public funds through the funnelling of money through the company Daac Hermes to purchase cars that were
then given to high-ranking regional officials. Despite the fact that the
allegations were well-founded, Daac
Hermes successfully sued the Timpul
for slander.
§
In early February, the
government authority responsible for issuing radio and television licenses
refused to extend the license of the radio station Antena C. The station is
owned by the municipality of Chisinau whose mayor is a leading member of Moldova’s
political opposition. Some Antena C employers went on a hunger strike that
lasted nine days. Finally, the station’s license was extended.
In general, opposition access to the mass media decreased in 2004,
especially in the second part of the year with the closure of the program
“Opposition Hour” on the public TV channel.
Access
to Information
Moldovan legislative
process lacked clarity and transparency. The ruling Communist Party, which had
the absolute majority in the parliament from 2001 to 2004, appeared not to be
interested in parliamentary dialogue, and there was no mechanism for public
input in to the legislative process, for example, in terms of discussing draft
laws.
According to the
parliament’s rules (adopted in 1996), draft laws are analyzed and discussed in
parliamentary commissions. By law, the sessions of the commissions are public
and should therefore also be open to mass media. In practice, however, the
media and the public could be present at those sessions only with authorization
by or at the invitation of the Permanent Bureau of Parliamentary Rules. In
several cases people were denied such permission.
·
In
2004, Dmitrii Ciubashenko, editor-in-chief of the
Russian-language newspaper Moldavskie Vedomosty, as well as Igor Burchiu, editor-in-chief and some
journalists of the Romanian-language newspaper Flux, were denied
accreditation to observe sessions of a parliamentary commission.
There were no legal provisions to regulate the
accreditation of journalists with public institutions to report on the
institutions’ activities, including those of the parliament, the government and
the presidency. This led to frequent cases of exclusion of media
representatives from important events.
Public discussion on
parliamentary processes was also inhibited by denying individuals access to the
records of the parliament.
·
The newspaper
Timpul submitted a written request to the parliament requesting access to
the official record (“blue books”) of the spring/summer 2002 plenary sessions.
This was denied on the grounds that the records were allegedly only for “office
use” for the parliament itself and access to such information was limited also
to members of parliament and public servants.
It also appeared that
some official agreements between the government of Moldova and other entities
were not published in the Official
Gazette of Moldova (Monitorul Official) despite the fact that the
law requires it. The MHC detected that between 1999 and September 2004, the
Moldovan government had made two agreements with the Transdniestrian
authorities, which were applicable in the Republic of Moldova but were not
published in the Official Gazette (see extradition, below).[4]
The Constitution
provides for an independent judiciary, however, there was pressure from
authorities on courts, and widespread corruption among judges remained a
serious problem in 2004. According to opinion polls, the public regarded the
judiciary as one of the most corrupt public sectors. In the global corruption
index of Transparency International, Moldova was placed at rank four, with the
most corrupt level being five.
Authorities continued
to interfere in the operation of the courts and the judiciary. Several
newspaper articles, some parliamentary deputies from the opposition party and a
former judge of the Constitutional Court, Gheorghe Susarenco, voiced concern
regarding the erosion of the independence of judiciary and political
interference on the part of the government party in some cases that were
pending in the national courts or were under investigation.
The presidents of
courts were under the de facto control
of the Communist authorities. They were also in charge of the distribution of
case files among the judges, and many of them abused this position to give
specific cases to those judges from whom they could expect judgments that were
politically desirable.
No juvenile justice system existed
in Moldova. As a result, juveniles under the age of 18 who were charged with
crimes were treated in the same way as adults by the police and courts. At
police stations, they shared cells with adults. In prisons, however, juvenile
delinquents were held separately from adults.
Occasionally, prosecutors placed
various bureaucratic hurdles in the way of lawyers to hinder them from meeting
with their clients who were held in custody. Lawyers did not usually have a
right to confidential meetings with their clients in appropriate facilities to
prepare their defense. For example, in the pre-trial detention center under the
Ministry of Interior and the Center for Combating Economic Crimes and
Corruption (CCCEC) they could only talk to their clients via telephone through
a glass. On 29 October 2004, the Moldovan Bar Association raised this problem
with the president of the Republic of Moldova, the Ministry of Justice, the
General Prosecutor’s Office and the CCCEC, stating that the lack of
confidential meetings with clients hindered the lawyers form effectively
defending their rights. On 17 November, the CCCEC replied to the Bar
Association that the separating glass at the CCCEC was necessary to prevent the
detainees from escaping or committing other crimes and to ensure the security
of the detainees and of other persons who were in contact with them, including
their legal counsels. Soon after that, on 2 December, the CCCEC informed the
Bar Association that it had decided to facilitate communication between lawyers
and clients by making more holes in the separating glass. This measure,
however, did not allow the lawyers to exchange documents with their clients.
In addition, defendants who stayed
in detention pending appeal were not given a pen and paper, allegedly for
security reason.
One of the main
problems of the courts was lack of adequate space. The Constitution and the
Civil and Criminal Procedure Codes guarantee the right to a public hearing, but
due to a lack of courtrooms, judges frequently held sessions in their offices,
which were too small to hold people who were not directly involved in a case as
parties. The Supreme Court had only one session room at its disposal, which
meant in practice that judges sent the parties and the public out to discuss
the case and the ruling. Some courts did not have enough furniture, for
example, the Supreme Court had no chairs for people who waited for their cases
to be called up, nor did it have adequate lavatories.
Another serious
problem was the inefficient and unprofessional administration of courts. Courts
were managed by their presidents, who were professionals in the field of law
but often not qualified to run a court from administrative point of view. In
addition, there was need for the modernization of judicial practices of
handling cases and writing decisions.
Court schedules were
poorly organized: for example, district courts and the Supreme Court summoned
parties of all cases scheduled for the day to meet in the court house at the
same hour in the morning, including those whose cases would be heard first in
the afternoon. Usually, on one day, approximately 20-30 cases were scheduled
for sessions at the Supreme Court and courts of appeal.
Further, despite the
fact that Moldova is part to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),
its courts - including the Supreme
Court - virtually never make reference to the ECHR’s
provisions or use the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as
a basis for their sentencing policy.
The judiciary remained inefficient
also because a high number of court decision were not executed. For example, many
rulings that were related to nationalized property, legal entities or involved
government official remained unexecuted. According to the Ministry of Justice,
only approximately 75% of all court rulings were carried out.
Courts in the
breakaway region of Transdniestria operated on the bases of the laws adopted by
the separatist regime. The Transdniestrian “president” was in charge of
appointing and dismissing all judges who were largely dependent on the
executive branch. Courts did not follow internationally recognized standards
for a fair trial. Moreover, Transdniestrian legislation fell seriously short of
international human rights standards.
Andrei Ivanţoc
and Tudor Petrov-Popa of the so-called “Ilaşcu Group” remained in prison
even though on 8 July the ECtHR ruled in the case of Ilaşcu and others v. Moldova and Russia against Russia and
Moldova and found that they had violated articles 1, 3, 5, 34 of the ECHR. The
ECtHR unanimously ruled that Russian and Moldovan authorities should take all
necessary measures to put an end to the arbitrary detention of the applicants
who were still imprisoned.[5]
A specific
cause of concern was the fact that Moldovan authorities handed over Moldovan
citizens to the authorities of the breakaway Transdniestrian region to stand
trial under the unconstitutional provisions of that region. Not only were these
people stripped of judicial protection under Moldovan law, they also faced
proceedings under provisions of Transdniestria that ran counter to both
Moldovan law and international human rights standards.
Such extraditions were reportedly based
on an unpublished 1999 agreement between the Ministry of Interior Affairs of the Republic of
Moldova and the “Ministry of Interior” of Transdniestria. The agreements were never officially
published in the Official Gazette
(Monitorul Official) of Moldova, but became applicable in Moldova.
Moldovan law does not
contain any procedural provisions for such extraditions, nor does it offer any
legal guarantees for those handed over to Transdniestrian authorities. All this
was done without the authorization of the General
Prosecutor’s Office.
According to
information received by the MCH, in 2003 and in the first half of 2004, the
Ministry of Interior asked the Transdniestrian authorities
to issue 75 letters rogatory (on de facto
extradition) and Moldovan authorities carried out 76 letters rogatory received
from Transdniestria.
It appeared that
Transdniestrian authorities abused the procedure of arresting persons who were
inconvenient for them. There were reported cases when citizens of the Republic
of Moldova were delivered to the authorities of internal affairs of the
Transdniestrian region who were subsequently criminally charged by local
courts. Despite requests by the General Prosecutor’s Office, Transdniestrian
authorities never transmitted criminal files of these people to Moldova for
judicial examination under Moldovan legislation.
The judicial system of
Transdniestria failed to provide even basic protection for a fair trial.
Authorities exerted political influence on the judiciary and trials fell short
of the basic due process standards. Politically motivated arrests and arbitrary
detentions that lasted for several months were not rare and trials were
conducted in the absence of the defendants. People convicted in the
Transdniestrian region did, nevertheless, also have a criminal record in the
Moldovan Republic.
In several cases,
Transdniestrian authorities filed fabricated charges against individuals who
had fought against the separatist regime.
·
Alexei Mocreac was
arrested by Transdniestrian authorities on 30 June. He had participated in
military activities during the civil war in 1992 against the separatist forces
as a commander. He was detained for 15 days, after which he was charged with
“physical resistance to a militia officer” on 13 July. Later, he was arrested
again pending criminal investigation. The Transdniestrian judge who decided on
the pre-trial detention cited aggravating circumstances because of Mocreac’s
past military activities. The MHC requested the General Prosecutor’s Office to
get the case file from Transdniestria but the prosecutor replied that the
separatist authorities refused to deliver it and the prosecutor had to
influence on theme to solve the case.
In 2003, a new Criminal and a Criminal Procedure Code were adopted,
which, the government claimed to be in line with international and European
human rights standards. However, in violation of international standards, the
Criminal Code fails to define torture and does not explicitly refer to it as a
crime. The MHC made several proposals to bring Moldovan legislation in line
with international standards in terms of prohibition and prevention of torture,
but they were ignored by the government.
The Ministry of Interior introduced a provision prescribing that every
pre-trial detention facility must have a medical unit, as recommended by the UN
Committee against Torture as a measure to prevent torture and other abuse of
detainees. However, no training was given to the staff of such units in 2004,
which meant that they did not have the necessary qualifications to establish
that cases of abuse by the police or corrections officers had taken place. It
appeared that the decision to set up the units was just one more formal
provision that, in practice, had no effect on the prevention of torture and
ill-treatment. In reality, the medical units in pre-trial facilities only
followed instructions given by law enforcement officers.
Moldovan police and other law enforcement agents continued to use
torture and ill-treatment as a basic investigation method. “Confessions”
extracted under torture were also used as evidence in courts, and the cases of
abuses usually went unpunished.
§
On 18 October, police
officers stopped Mihalcean Cornel, who was running to the bus station in
Chisinau. He was handcuffed and taken to a police station where he was
subjected to body search. At the same time, the officers seized from him 300 lei (EUR 18) without documenting this in
their report. When Cornel refused to sign the report, the officers hit him on his
head with their fists and a chair. They threatened him with sexual abuse by
fellow detainees. Cornel went unconscious and was brought to emergency care in
the Municipal Hospital. He remained hospitalized for ten days and was later
operated on his ear. Criminal proceedings were initiated against the police
officers and they continued as of the end of 2004.
§
In October, Alla
Chemencedji went to the police to report stolen ID documents. Later on, the
police claimed that she had behaved aggressively toward them, after which the
police had used force and delivered her to a psychiatric hospital. Local human
rights monitors believed this was done to conceal the fact that she had been
severely beaten by the police. The MHC discovered that Chemencedji had been institutionalized
without a review by a medical council, which should have been carried out
within 24 hours to establish that she posed a threat to the public and to
herself, as required by Moldovan law. After 36 hours in hospital, Chemencedji
was pressured into signing a Romanian-language document to validate her
confinement despite the fact that she was a Russian-speaker. Furthermore, the
police officers, while acknowledging to the MHC, which acted on behalf of
Chemercedji, the use of force, did not officially document this use, which was
also a breach of law. Under continued pressure from the MHC, Chemencedji was
released form the psychiatric hospital after a few weeks.
The penitentiary institution no. 8 in of Bender,
Transdniestria, was officially under the jurisdiction of the Republic of
Moldova.[6] However,
from September 2002 until February 2003, and from September 2003 through 2004,
Transdniestrian authorities disconnected the facility from electricity, water,
heating and food supplies. They unreasonably argued that the 464 detainees held
in that facility put the population of the town at risk of being infected with
tuberculosis. For local monitors, this was just a pretext of the separatist
authorities to force the Republic of Moldova authorities away from Bender. As a
result, the temperature in the cells went down to 15 degrees, which caused
increasing problems with humidity and mould, and led to additional health
problems among the inmates.
The General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Moldova
refused to open a criminal investigation into the illegal disconnection of
penitentiary from the necessary supplies, arguing that “Moldova does not have
jurisdiction on the territory of Transdniestria.” This refusal was challenged
by the MHC, and, on 3 August, the Supreme Court of Justice of Moldova
recognized the competence of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bender city to take
measures to eliminate all human rights concerns raised in this case. However,
the court did not order the Prosecutor’s Office to open a criminal
investigation against the perpetrators.
Freedom of Religion
and Religious Tolerance
The registration of religious organizations remained a problem, which
had serious implications on their activities and legal status.
The law does not expressly oblige the State Service for Religions (SSR)
to register a religious organization, but suggests that registration is
automatic when adequate documentation is filed. However, some religious groups
have encountered difficulties in obtaining registration. No Muslim groups had
been registered by the end of 2004 for the official reason that registering one
group might create conflicts within the rest of the Muslim community. The
Spiritual Council of Muslims in Moldova and the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints (Mormons) had lodged registration applications but continued
to face bureaucratic difficulties in the registration process.
Unregistered religious organizations were not permitted to buy land or
obtain construction permits for churches or seminaries. In addition, the law
that regulates NGO activities bans the propagation of religious information.
The Code on Administrative Offences is in contradiction with the
provisions of the Constitution and the law on religion, which generally provide
for freedom of conscience and religion. For example, the Administrative Code
restricts the practicing of religious rituals in private places and prohibits
the engagement of foreign nationals in religious activities without permission
from authorities. Law enforcement officers frequently harassed and prosecuted
under the Administrative Code members of the unregistered Spiritual Council of
Muslims of Moldova. For example, Talgat Masaev (who is Moldovan citizen), was
ordered to pay a fine of 20 minimum salaries for worship “without the consent
of competent state bodies.” An appeal court upheld the decision in March 2004.
In recent years, authorities in Transdniestria have denied registration
to Baptists, Methodists, and the Church of the Living God. Unregistered religious
groups were not allowed to gather publicly. The law prohibits renting premises
for religious meetings and authorities regarded meetings of unregistered groups
in private homes as illegal.
Several Jehovah's Witnesses were arrested for their religious activities.
Transdniestrian officials reportedly accused Jehovah's Witnesses of lack of
patriotism and of spreading “Western influence,” among other things.
Additionally, TMR authorities have developed a new textbook that is to be used
at all school levels, which reportedly contains negative and defamatory
information about the Jehovah's Witnesses. Non-Orthodox groups in Transdniester
complained that they were in general not allowed to rent property and were
often harassed during religious services.
Transdniestrian policy toward the
Moldovan/Romanian speaking minority hardened dramatically in 2004. The conflict
escalated in July when Transdniestrian authorities closed down the last eight
Moldovan/Romanian-language schools that used Latin script, instead of Cyrillic,
as required by the authorities. Moldovan/Romanian is the mother
tongue of an
estimated 40% of the population in Transdniestria. Approximately 5,000 pupils
had been studying using the Latin script for over ten years and wanted to
continue to do so.[7]
The right to use Latin script is perceived
as an important sign of the right to self-identification but is also an
essential prerequisite for successful studies in Moldovan/Romanian schools of
higher education.[8]
·
On 15 July, about 150
armed militia and security agents of the Transdniestrian “Ministry of State
Security,” wearing civilian clothing, forced their way into the private
Moldovan/Romanian-language schools in eight different regions and seized and
destroyed teaching materials, children’s personal files and other property, all
without documenting these seizures.
·
On 29 July in Catan
Alexei, Transdniestrian militia arrested Stratulat Grigorii, Halus Vasile,
Teutu Valeriu, Cirjanovschii Nicolae, and Taracuta Victor – all parents of
children who attended Moldovan/Romanian school nr. 12 in Ribnita. They were
held in detention for three to seven days. In addition, Cihovschii Andrei, one
of the teachers, spent seven days in custody. The parents and the teacher were
not given specific details as to what offences they were being held under.
Other Moldovan/Romanian language public schools in Transdniestria were
required to teach Moldovan/Romanian using the Cyrillic alphabet based on old
manuals and a curriculum from the Soviet era.
Before ordering the closure of schools using the Latin script, many of
these schools had been moved in hopes that parents would stop sending their
children to Latin script schools because of the greater distance. However, for
several years, all 5,000 pupils travelled an additional 20-30 km from their
homes to the schools in order to receive education in the Latin script.
School officials and parents were neither consulted nor informed about
the plans to close the schools and the new language requirements. The 2004-2005
school year, which was to start on 1 September, was delayed due to the actions
of the Transdniestrian authorities. Several years ago these schools became
private at the insistence of the Transdniestrian leadership and have since been
required to pay rent often at a higher than normal market value.
The situation further escalated on 26 July, when about 80
Trarndniestrian militia seized the Moldovan orphanage in the city of
Bender. Approximately 100-200 children and
people who gathered on the site to support the children spent days outside to
protest the action. In response, the Transdniestrian authorities cut water and
electricity, which, in addition to the militia greatly limiting access to the
orphanage, led to a food shortage. Only with the help of the OSCE could food
reach children and their supporters.
As a result of their protests against Transdniestrian actions toward
Moldovan/Romanian-language schools some parents of the children were fired from
their jobs and there were reportedly attempts to strip some parents of custody
of their children. School Nr. 20 in Tiraspol was severely damaged during the
raids and remained closed until 17 January 2005. While the school was under
repair, parents were asked to send their children to Russian schools, “in the
interim.”
[1] Based on the
[2] OSCE/ODIHR Council of Europe, Joint
Recommendation on the Electoral Law and the Electoral Administration in Moldova, Opinion
No. 272/2004, 12 July 2004, http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/07/4381_en.pdf.
[3] Ibid.
[4] For more information, see MHC, Violations of the Right to Liberty and Security of Person, Right to
Fair Trial, Right to Life, Right to Not Be Subjected to Torture or Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment, and Presumption of Innocence, July 2004,
http://www.humanrights.md/eng/News/Critica%20AcordMAI.doc%20tradicerea%20engl.pdf.
[5] Ilaşcu and
others v.
[6] Bender is situated
on the left bank of the river Dniester and officially considered to be under
control of both the
[7] OSCE, “Over thousand pupils in Transdniestria still
without school,” 10 September 2004, at http://www.osce.org/news/show_news.php?id=4349.
[8] IHF, “Severe violations of Human Rights in the Transdnistrian Region of