(RSF/IFEX) – In letters to Constanza Mayor Nadu Mazare, Romanian Democratic Party President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, dated 18 January 2002, RSF expressed outrage over the hampering of the distribution of the national daily “Jurnalul National”‘s 16 January edition, and Democratic party members’ expulsion of journalists from the newspaper’s local bureau on […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In letters to Constanza Mayor Nadu Mazare, Romanian Democratic Party President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, dated 18 January 2002, RSF expressed outrage over the hampering of the distribution of the national daily “Jurnalul National”‘s 16 January edition, and Democratic party members’ expulsion of journalists from the newspaper’s local bureau on 17 January. These incidents followed the publication of an article that incriminated Mayor Mazare in a series of embezzlement scandals. “Mr. Nadu Mazare’s approach is unacceptable and must evoke a response from the leaders of this Council of Europe member country, which also has aspirations to join the European Union. Such violations to the freedom to inform must be clearly condemned and punished,” stated Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “We ask that the journalists’ bureau and materials be returned to them so that they can once again exercise their right to inform freely,” Ménard added.
According to information collected by RSF, distribution of the national daily “Jurnalul National”‘s 16 January edition was blocked by Conpress, a distribution company from the Constanza region (located near the Black Sea coast) that is owned in part by Mazare, the mayor of Constanza and a member of the Democratic Party. The same day, the mayor and his business associates also bought up all the copies of the newspaper that had been distributed by the state company Rodipet as soon as they hit the market. The newspaper’s 16 January issue included an investigative report implicating the mayor in several cases involving the embezzlement of public monies. In addition, because Conpress considerably reduced its order of the newspaper’s 17 January edition, “Jurnalul National” journalists distributed the newspaper in the streets at no charge. The 17 January edition again included the article incriminating Mazare. On 17 January, at about noon (local time), guards from a private security firm close to the mayor and Democratic Party officials forcibly entered the newspaper’s local bureau. The journalists were told that the newspaper’s rental agreement, valid until 2004, had been nullified, and that the building was being taken over by the Democratic Party. The journalists were then violently thrown out of the premises. They were not given the opportunity to take their computer equipment or work-related documents with them. Despite calls by editor-in-chief Ema Valentina Belet, the police did not intervene. “Jurnalul National”‘s 18 January edition only included four pages, three of which were blank. The fourth page was titled, “This edition censored by Mayor Mazare”.
