POLITICAL REPRESSION AND POLITICAL PRISONERS IN MOLDOVA

In 2014, Moldova signed the Association    Agreement with the European    Union,    committing itself to respect the democratic rules recognized in the EU. However, in reality, since 2014, a repressive regime under the leadership  of  the  chairman  of the Democratic Party, oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc has been established and continues to strengthen in Moldova.
Currently, Moldova is a captured state in which the “invader” Plahotniuc, using methods of corruption, blackmail, intimidation, has established complete personal control over the parliament, government, justice, the media, and business. To consolidate his regime, Plahotniuc went on to direct repression against his political opponents, civil activists, denunciators of corruption, journalists who dared to raise their voice against the violation of the rules of democracy and the rule of law in the country.
Plahotniuc’s Moldova is a country in which political prisoners have appeared. Citizens are prosecuted for trumped-up cases and thrown into jail only because they dared to oppose the established repressive regime.

Petrenco’s group
On September 6, 2015, during an anti-government protest rally near the Prosecutor General’s Office, police detained Grigore Petrenco, honorary member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the  Council  of  Europe,  leader of the left-wing opposition party Krasnii Block (formerly Our Home Moldova) and five other activists – Alexander Roșco, Pavel Grigorciuc,  Mihail  Amerberg, Oleg Buznea, Vladimir Jurat.

The   protest   was   peaceful, but the police claimed that a number of its employees were slightly injured, which was the reason for the arrest on charges of “organizing riots.” During the investigation, the detention of Petrenco  and  other  detainees in the remand prison was extended several times. The prison administration refused Petrenco to have a special medical examination after being in the premises, where prisoners with   tuberculosis   had   access.

The lawyers of political prisoners repeatedly stated  about the violation of the procedures, but their complaints were ignored. Only on April 26, 2016, the arrested were transferred from prison to judicial control.
The persecution of the “Petrenco’s group” was recognized as politically motivated in the report of the US State Department on observance of human rights in the countries of the world for 2015. A number of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that the arrests were   political   and   called   on the authorities to release the detainees, ensure freedom of expression and assembly, as well as the right to protest.
The trial of the “Petrenco’s group” has turned into a farce, constantly dragging out because of the lack of any evidence of guilt of political activists.

Platform “Dignity and Truth”

Another political formation that was subjected to politically motivated persecution by the Plahotniuc’s regime was the political party “Platform Dignity and Truth”.

After the party organized this April  24,  2016  anti-government rally in Chisinau, activists of the Platform for Dignity and Truth, Radu Cibotari, Valeriu Cașu, Alexandru Panuţă, Ion Matasevici were arrested on charges of “organizing riots”.
After the same rally, the entrepreneur, owner of the leading IT company, Internet provider Starnet, Alexander Machedon,  was  incriminated with a criminal case on charges of   “illegal   business   activities.” The case was initiated after Machedon, sympathetic to the “Platform for Dignity and Truth,” openly urged fellow citizens to go to protest rallies of the opposition.
The  activist  of  the  “Platform for Dignity and Truth” Sergiu Cebotari,   being   an   employee of the State Enterprise “Poșta Moldovei”, publicly delivered an exposure of the criminal scheme of smuggling in bags with “mail correspondence” of anabolic means to the EU countries and the USA. After that, he was arrested on a trumped-up criminal case on charges of fraud.
General Secretary of the “Platform fo Dignity and Truth” Chiril Motpan was severely beaten by the police during an opposition protest at the Parliament building on January 20, 2016.

Civil activists

Victims of politically motivated persecution by the Moldovan authorities were civil activists, lawyers, denunciators of corruption, journalists.
Attorney Anna Ursachi, who represented    the    interests    of the Petrenco’s group, Renato Usatîi,      other      oppositionists and activists in the courts, was herself forced to leave Moldova in October 2016 because of the threat of arrest on a criminal case against her. Ursachi is accused of  having  allegedly  participated in  the  murder  20  years  ago. On all Plahotniuc’s   television stations,   a   slander   campaign was launched against Ursachi under the heading the “Devil’s Advocate”.    Currently,    Ursachi lives in one of the EU states and does not have any opportunity to return to Moldova.
There has been also a criminal proceeding instituted against another   lawyer   who   defends the interests of the opposition, Eduard Rudenco on charges that he allegedly extorted money from some drug dealers to “settle” their cases in the courts.
On April 5, 2017, the editor- in-chief of the online edition of Newsmaker, Vladimir Soloviev, reported that he was being watched outdoors. Newsmaker repeatedly published journalistic investigations  on  corruption  in the highest echelons of power in Moldova. Unlike the official press and media holding of Plahotniuc, the publication seeks objectively to publish the activities of the opposition.

Soloviev  published  photos and    videos,    which    indicate the      organized      surveillance of    unidentified    persons.    He
applied    to    the    police,    but they refused to identify the participants  in  the  harassment of  the  journalist.  According  to the   Criminal   Procedure   Code of Moldova, visual observation can be conducted to disclose or prevent serious and particularly serious crimes. Such suspicions about the journalist are absurd. Soloviev himself and professional journalistic organizations regarded the surveillance as a violation of the law, an attempt to intimidate a journalist and impede his professional activities.
Because of the threat to freedom and life itself, the denunciators of Moldova’s most vicious corruption crime – a billion dollars theft   from the banking system (this amount was 15% of the country’s GDP) were forced to leave in November 2014. Mikhail Gofman, a former officer of the National Center for Combating Corruption, and Sergiu Sagaidac, a bank consultant, left the country after claiming that the “theft of the century” was carried out with the connivance of the top political leadership and all the authorities of the country, and Plahotniuc himself and his immediate surroundings became the main beneficiaries of this theft. Gofman is forced to hide in the US, Sagaidac is in the UK.

In August 2016 Forbes published an article ‘Billion Dollar Theft: In Moldova, One Rich Banker’s ‘Crime’ Has A Nation Doing Time’.
“The 43 year old former deputy director of anti-money laundering and terrorist finance for Moldova Mihail Gofman has made enemies with his country’s most powerful billionaire – Vladimir Plahotniuc. He is suspected of orchestrating the ransacking of three banks and the theft of half of the reserves of the National Bank of Moldova. Interpol has had an investigation into Plahotniuc’s activities throughout Western Europe since
2007.  Plahotniuc  was  banned by    the    Independence    Party for running for Prime Minister because of his spotty past. To put it simply, Plahotniuc is Moldova’s man behind the curtain. He is an A-list businessman who owns everything from luxury resorts to media outfits, and is vice chairman and chief financial backer of the ruling Democratic Party”. “The entire system was rigged by Plahotniuc, with Vlad Filat in his corner,” he says of the country’s former Prime Minister. Filat is serving a 9 year prison term for supposedly allowing National Bank reserves to be ransacked. The money was all funneled into three  banks  majority  controlled by Plahotniuc. The reserves went from $2.8 billion to $1.8 billion in less than three years”.

Moldovan  opposition politicians and civil activists are determined to continue fighting the mafia regime of the oligarch Plahotniuc     to rid Moldova and Europe of this shameful phenomenon.