PCRM should remember what it did in 2006 with the then popular stations, ex-director of Antena C

“In 2005-2006, when the current Opposition party, the PCRM, was in power, it did everything possible to strangulate the Opposition press by different methods. When the PCRM says that the ruling party now attacks “Moldova Suverana” somehow, they should remember what they did in 2006 with the then popular stations,” expert of the Electronic Press Association (APEL) Vasile Stati, ex-director of the radio station Antena C, stated for Info-Prim Neo when asked to comment on the PCRM’s statement condemning the “unprecedented attack on the freedom of expression and the raider attack on the periodicals “Moldova Suverana” and “Nezavisimaya Moldova”.” “The news agency Info-Prim, who was then municipal, was also denationalized in a non-transparent way. The TV channel Euro TV and the radio station Antena C came next. The leader of the PCRM admitted publicly that the Communist Party will take Antena C and turn it into a small bomb,” Vasile Stati said. As to “Moldova Suverana”, the APEL expert said that it should be determined if the paper was privatized with violations. “The authorities should do justice no matter who is to blame. If we want to build a state of law, we must judge everyone equally. In a way, the PCRM revealed that it has connections with “Moldova Suverana”, saying it should have been independent after privatization. This means that when they denationalized it, they kept control over it. Nothing has changed,” said Vasile Stati. Petru Macovei, executive director of the Association of Independent Press (API), said the papers “Moldova Suverana” and “Nezavisimaya Moldova” were privatized illegally and non-transparently. “The current administration is not ideal, but the steps taken in the case of “Moldova Suverana” and “Nezavisimaya Moldova” were aimed at enforcing the law. It is important what follows and if the authorities’ actions towards these papers are legal from now on,” Petru Macovei stated for Info-Prim Neo. He stressed that it is illegal for a company to buy a media outlet outside a privatization contest. “It is good that the Government asked the court to annul those legal documents whereby the two papers were transferred to a limited liability company. We will see what happens next – the Government or the state will take possession of “Moldova Suverana” and “Nezavisimaya Moldova,” the API director said. The PCRM’s statement addressed to the Council of Europe, the European Union, the diplomatic corps and public organizations that defend the rights of the journalists and the freedom of expression says that “for the first time in Moldova’s history, the state, in the person of the State Chancellery, was the author of a raider attack and, through fraudulent schemes and with the help of the courts, practically nationalized and sequestrated the periodical “Moldova Suverana”.” The PCRM says that the Government annulled the normative documents on the liquidation of the state-owned paper “Moldova Suverana” and resumed the procedure for registering the brand “Moldova Suverana” as state property after SRL “Moldova Suverana” worked as an independent paper for six years.