(RSF/IFEX) – On 19 May 2003, RSF voiced outrage over a raid on the offices of the news group Flux Publications. During the 13 May raid, police seized computers, e-mail messages and files in connection with a report alleging links between a Moldava-based Lebanese businessman and a terrorist group. The report is the subject of […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 19 May 2003, RSF voiced outrage over a raid on the offices of the news group Flux Publications. During the 13 May raid, police seized computers, e-mail messages and files in connection with a report alleging links between a Moldava-based Lebanese businessman and a terrorist group. The report is the subject of a libel suit launched by the businessman on 24 April.
“It is scandalous that a mere libel suit is used by the judicial authorities to raid a news organisation and thereby violate the confidentiality of journalistic sources,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to State Prosecutor Vasile Rusu. “Even in the case of reports relating to such sensitive matters as the sale of arms to a terrorist group, it is unacceptable to confiscate files used by journalists in the course of their investigative work, as it turns them into auxiliaries of the justice system against their will.”
Ménard said that RSF was also concerned that the ongoing prosecution of Flux Publications was merely a ploy for “applying pressure on a news organisation that upsets the authorities by publishing investigative reports on controversial subjects.” He called on the state prosecutor to do everything possible to ensure that the confiscated equipment and files are returned and that the authorities stop harassing Flux Publications’ journalists.
The article that is the subject of a libel suit by Lebanese businessman Mahmoud Hamoud, Lebanon’s former honorary consul in Chisinau, was published on 20 March in each of the Flux Publications’ three media outlets (a news agency, a daily and a weekly). It alleged links between Hamoud and members of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation. It also reported that Justice Minister Ion Morei had threatened Flux journalists and had discussed ways to close down the news group, which was judged to be too critical.
Igor Burciu, the editor of Flux’s weekly, said investigators prevented the journalists from making telephone calls during the search, which took place at around 4:00 p.m. (local time) on 13 May. At noon the following day, Moldavian secret service agents interrogated the organisation’s journalists at their workplace about the article and its author, who used the pseudonym Ion Manole.
Since the article’s publication, the Prosecutor’s Office has summoned Burciu and his deputy editor Vitalie Calugareanu almost daily for questioning about the sources used in the report and the author’s identity, but no charges have been brought against them.
