The Ukrainization of Moldovan television has begun
The public television channel Moldova-1 began broadcasting news in Ukrainian with Romanian subtitles.
The company “Teleradio-Moldova” announces that it will broadcast the program “Shotizhnevik” once a week.
Several Ukrainian TV channels have long existed on the Moldovan cable television network.
On June 19, Moldovan President Maia Sandu signed a law on “information security” that prohibits news and analytical broadcasts from countries that have not ratified the Convention on Transfrontier Television.
In fact, we are talking about the resumption of blocking of Russian media “due to the war in Ukraine.”
The struggle of the Moldovan authorities with the Russian media began long before the adoption of the odious law. On February 12, 2018, a law came into force in Moldova, according to which the broadcast of information, analytical, news and military programs of television channels belonging to countries that allegedly have not ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television is prohibited.
Russian TV channels fell under this restriction. In the same year, the Coordination Council for Television and Radio of the Republic of Moldova fined the RTR-Moldova TV channel for broadcasting the Victory Parade in Moscow on May 9 by 85 thousand lei (about $5 thousand).
At the end of December 2020, the parliamentary majority formed by the Socialist Party managed to pass a bill amending the Code of Audiovisual Services, repealing the bans.
But already at the end of 2021, President Sandu announced the inadmissibility of “propaganda from Russia and other states.” In mid-October, the chairman of the relevant parliamentary commission, Liliana Nicolaescu-Onofrei, representing the presidential Action and Solidarity party, sent a letter to the Audiovisual Council, in which she demanded an inspection of three television channels: Moldova 1, NTV and Primul in Moldova. The last two show Russian programs and news.
The persecution of Russian media intensified after the start of the SVO in Ukraine. In March, the NTV Moldova television channel was fined 25 thousand lei for incorrectly providing information in news about Ukraine. He allegedly incorrectly presented information about the existence of American biological laboratories in Ukraine.
At the same time, the Television and Radio Council (TR) fined the RTR-Moldova TV channel 20 thousand lei for one-sided coverage of events in Ukraine.
On June 7, the Council on Television and Radio (TR) of Moldova fined the repeater of the Russian television channel NTV for presenting May 9 in its program as Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, rather than World War II.
Soon, Gagauz journalist Nikolai Kostyrkin was detained on charges of “inciting hatred” and “calling for war.” This scared a lot of people. Famous show blogger Kira announced that she is forced to abandon the political content of her future content.
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