Journalist Ana-Maria Gebăilă, founder of the publication ȘtiriCraiova.ro, was cited to report to the County Police Inspectorate (IPJ) Dolj, where he was asked to reveal the source of an article, reports presshub.ro.
It is about a article from January 17 this year, in which the journalist wrote that one of the daughters of the director general of the Autonomous Administration of the Public Domain and Housing Fund (RADPFL) Craiova was caught driving under the influence of drugs.
The article was based on a press release transmitted by IPJ Dolj itself. The institution had announced that a 24-year-old woman was stopped during a traffic control, and the drug test result was positive for the consumption of methamphetamines.
A bag with a green vegetable substance and two envelopes containing a white powdery substance, as well as half a homemade cigarette, were also found on the driver.
Police have not released the name of the person in the case. Stiri Craiova found out and published it, considering that it was about the daughter of a public figure from Craiova who was reported to have violated the traffic rules several times, which is why the information was relevant.
Ana-Maria Gebăilă was summoned as a witness, in a file opened following a criminal complaint, at the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Dolj Court.
During the hearings, which lasted more than an hour, the policeman asked her to say who is the source of the information that allowed the identification of the name of the young woman who was found to be drugged while driving and if the journalist talks to people from the police.
The policeman also insisted on how the name of the driver would have reached the journalist, i.e. via Whatsapp, email or other means, if the source works for the Police and other details that would lead to her identification.
“A prosecutor from Romania, an EU member country, forces me to tell him, under oath (at the hearings, as a witness you are obliged to swear that you say everything you know, while as a defendant you can refuse to make any statement, because any you say can be used against you) who are my journalistic sources”, Ana-Maria Gebăilă wrote on her Facebook account.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has repeatedly emphasized that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees not only the substance and content of information and ideas, but also the means of their transmission. The press has been granted the broadest scope of protection in the Court’s jurisprudence, including as regards the confidentiality of journalistic sources, reports presshub.ro.
Tags: journalist Craiova pressured police reveal sources wrote daughters director general Autonomous Administration Public Domain Housing Fund caught driving influence drugs
