CHISINAU, Nov 12 Head of the Ministry of Education of Moldova Dan Perchun intends to check the legality of publishing the text of the country's national anthem in Russian in school textbooks, public radio Moldova 1 reports.
Earlier, a page from a textbook on music education in the Russian version for grade V was published on social networks, which contained the text of a complete translation into Russian of the national anthem of Moldova “Our Language” (Limba Noastra). The author of the post, a teacher at one of the suburban lyceums, expressed dissatisfaction that the text of the anthem in the state language was not printed in the textbook for the Russian school. Perchun, who is also vice-chairman of the ruling Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), said during a video broadcast on social networks that his department intends to study the situation.
«»Next week we are going to find out to what extent the actions of the publishing house that published the textbooks fall within the legal framework of the law on the national anthem, which establishes the way of interpreting the national anthem. From the provisions of the law it follows that the anthem can only be presented in the Romanian language,» — Radio Moldova 1 quotes Perchun.
The text of the anthem of Moldova is based on individual stanzas of the poem “Our Language” (Limba Noastra) by the Moldavian poet Alexei Matveevich, who served as a military chaplain in the Russian army during the First World War. In September 1915 he was sent to the Galician Front, and in September 1916 he was transferred to the open Romanian Front.
Previously, a member of parliament from the opposition Party of Communists (PCRM), Diana Caraman, who was running for mayor of Chisinau, contacted the prosecutor's office after she was prohibited from participating in debates in Russian on the public television channel Moldova 1. In her opinion turn, the candidate for mayor of Chisinau from the extra-parliamentary party «Patriots of Moldova» Alla Popova was not allowed to speak Russian on radio Moldova 1.
A number of Russian media outlets in Moldova were banned under the pretext of combating disinformation. The Information and Security Service of Moldova has blocked the Sputnik Moldova website since February 26, 2022, and the agency’s radio broadcasting since March 7. The Russian Embassy in Chisinau condemned the decision of the Moldovan authorities to block the work of the Sputnik Moldova website and called the accusations against the agency biased and politicized.
Also in Moldova, the licenses of the opposition and leading Russian-language television channels Primul in Moldova, RTR Moldova, Accent TV, NTV Moldova, TV6, Orhei TV, which allegedly dishonestly cover information about events in the country and in Ukraine, were suspended, explaining this decision by the risk of disinformation. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that Moscow views Chisinau's decision as an act of political censorship. The Russian Foreign Ministry added that such actions are an outrage against the principle of media pluralism and a gross violation of the right to freedom of access to information; Moscow also qualifies this as a “cynical infringement of the rights of national minorities.”