Cornel Mihalache, who is a member of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC), said the decision to liquidate the TV channel NIT is a political one that was most probably taken by order of Prime Minister Vlad Filat. According to him, his suppositions are supported by a number of situations when the Premier ignored the journalists of NIT and repeatedly expressed his antipathy towards them, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a news conference on April 18, Cornel Mihalache said that the BCC members found out that they will vote for withdrawing the license of NIT on the morning of April 5. The decision was published in a special number of the Official Gazette the next day and the state-run company “Radiocomunicatii” stopped the broadcasting of the channel in several hours. “This series of events shows that things are orchestrated from the highest level. We cannot explain in a different way the fact that the BCC, which turned out to be an inefficient and amorphous institution during the last two years, worked only to liquidate a TV channel that irritated the government,” stated Cornel Mihalache. He warned that the reactions of the embassies of Russia and France, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the UN, and the opinion leader Igor Botan, Alexei Tulbure, Arcadie Barbarosie, Dmitri Chubashenko, Nicolae Chirtoaca, Victor Borshevich, Bogdan Tardea, Iulia Seminova and others, who expressed their concern about the created situation, are natural and predictable as the closing of an important television channel like NIT means the limitation of the right to the freedom of expression and the access to information. Earlier, the BCC chairman Marian Pocaznoi said the decision to withdraw the broadcasting license of NIT is legal and justified. Irregularities were identified during the monitoring performed at this channel during the last three years. “This media outlet flagrantly violated the human rights by distorting the reality and by misinformation, especially in the news programs. Thus, the people living in the area covered by the TV channel (about 70% of the country’s territory) didn’t have access to correct and pluralistic information,” he stated. “No other broadcaster violated the law so flagrantly, constantly and seriously, ignoring the national and international legislation, the norms concerning the observance of the human rights and fundamental freedoms and the democratic broadcasting principles for so long.” The decision to deprive NIT of license was taken on April 5 after a series of gradual penalties were imposed on the TV channel.