Amnesty International claims that the Republic of Moldova has violated human rights to counter Russian influence

The Republic of Moldova violated the right to association and freedom of expression in an attempt to counter Russian influence, Amnesty International said in its annual report on the situation of human rights in the world, EFE agency reports, quoted by Agerpres.

In this regard, Amnesty recalls the fact that the authorities in Chisinau banned the pro-Russian party Şor and that the government prevented members of the “Chance” party, founded after the dissolution of Şor, from participating in the local elections last November.

It should be mentioned that the fugitive oligarch Ilan Şor, sentenced definitively in 2023 to 15 years in prison for bank fraud, is hiding from the justice system in the Republic of Moldova, currently being in Russia, where he arrived from Israel. On April 21, he announced the creation of the “Pobeda” political bloc, whose purpose is to unite the pro-Russian opposition against the pro-European government in Chisinau.

Şor announced that the formation will participate in the presidential elections and the referendum in the fall of this year in the Republic of Moldova.

Amnesty International also writes in its report that, in October 2023, the Security and Intelligence Service blocked more than 20 digital platforms, most of them based in Russia, and suspended the broadcasting of six television channels.

The intelligence services from Chisinau announced on that occasion that they had ordered the “immediate blocking” of 22 websites that were disseminating false information, among the blocked sites being those of Russia Today (RT) and the mass media of state VGTRK.

The measure was part of Chisinau’s policy against what it calls Russian disinformation and the hybrid war waged by Russia against the Republic of Moldova.

Amnesty International notes that Russians are increasingly banned from entering the Republic. Moldavia

In its report, Amnesty highlights the tensions with Russia, mentions that 45 Russian diplomats have been expelled and that Russian citizens are increasingly banned from entering the Republic of Moldova.

It should be remembered that, according to the Chisinau government, the 45 Russian diplomats and other embassy employees were expelled because of their “unfriendly actions”. In addition, an investigation carried out at that time by Jurnal TV and The Insider publication revealed that the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Chisinau was equipped with numerous antenna systems capable of capturing any type of signal at a distance.

The journalists of the two mass media identified people who operated these systems from the roof of the embassy and who would have been connected to the Russian secret services.

Finally, in its report, Amnesty International mentions that, in July 2023, the president of the Communist Party of the Transnistrian region and one of the opponents of the Tiraspol regime, Oleg Horjan, was fatally stabbed in his home after being released from prison.

In 2018, Horjan was sentenced to 4 years in prison by the separatist authorities from Tiraspol, later his lawyers addressed the national courts of the Republic of Moldova which, in 2020, through a decision of the Supreme Court of Justice, found that the Transnistrian opponent he was detained illegally and that he had been convicted by unconstitutional courts.