CHISINAU, Dec 22 More than two thousand people risk being left without earnings in connection with the closure of six TV channels in Moldova, said on Thursday at a rally in Chisinau, the deputy of the city assembly of the Moldovan capital Yuri Kuznetsov.
On Thursday, a protest rally in defense of freedom of speech and against the persecution of journalists, as well as the closure of TV channels, takes place in front of the Moldovan parliament.
«The country's leadership established censorship by closing the TV channels that objectively presented the events. As a result of this illegal decision, more than two thousand people, and this is more than two thousand families, risk being left without work. Shame on this government, which is afraid of the truth,» Kuznetsov said.
Representatives of the Shor party, socialists, communists, the Civil Congress party, civil activists, journalists from closed TV channels take part in the protest action, many hold posters with anti-government slogans, and there are calls for the resignation of the country's leadership. The police cordoned off the parliament building, they do not interfere in the actions of the demonstrators.
On December 16, the Moldovan authorities suspended the license of the opposition and leading Russian-language TV channels Primul in Moldova, RTR Moldova, Accent TV, NTV Moldova, TV6, Orhei TV, which allegedly cover information about events in the country and Ukraine in bad faith, explaining this decision as a risk of disinformation . The Russian Foreign Ministry said 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, and Moscow also qualifies this as «a cynical infringement of the rights of national minorities.»
According to the results of opinion polls, which were published in early December by the Institute of Marketing and Research IMAS, in six months the number of people dissatisfied with the policy of the Moldovan authorities has grown to 65%. At the same time, 23% of respondents said that they were completely dissatisfied with their lives, 27% answered that they were dissatisfied, satisfied and very satisfied — 21% and 4%, respectively.