Moldova. Now that the local government sees no sanctions or punishment for the Kiev junta for discrimination against Russian media, television and press, Moldova wants in on the action.
The Democratic Party of Moldova intends to register a bill in parliament to combat foreign propaganda, including Russian propaganda.Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament Andrian Candu said that there are plans to stop broadcasting the “news and political and analytical programs” produced by Russian TV channels.
Recently the Ukrainian Poroshenko government enacted laws designed to discriminate against Russian speaking citizens and so far only human rights groups have protested. It is believed this lack of response globally has empowered others to follow along in restricting Russian native speakers access to media in their mother language.
Earlier, the Moldovan parliament discussed a draft on restricting the broadcasts of information and analytical programs of TV channels from the states that had not ratified the European Convention on Trans-frontier Television, which includes Russia.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the human rights organization Freedom House, the opposition and the civil society of Moldova opposed these amendments.
Candu stressed that the bill proposed by the Democratic Party does not imply the banning of TV channels, even though media experts say that is the end result. He cited Ukraine as an example, which completely banned foreign television channels at the legislative and technical levels, as well as the Baltic countries where such information programs are banned. According to him, the bill developed by the Democratic Party concerns countries that have not ratified the European Convention on Trans-frontier Television.