GAGAUZIA BROADCASTERS SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR RETRANSMITTING RUSSIAN NEWS AND POLITICAL PROGRAMS, MEDIA WATCHDOG REPORTS

Television channels in the southern Moldovan autonomous region of Gagauzia shall be strictly punished for the retransmission of Russian news and political-analytical programs, Audiovisual Coordinating Council (ACC) Chairman Dragos Vicol reported at the Wednesday's working meeting of the parliamentary Standing Committee for Culture, Education, Sciences, Youth, Sports and the Mass Media.

According to him, some broadcasters in Gagauzia are continuing to ignore the Law on struggle against the so-called "Russian propaganda" and keep retransmitting Russian news and analytical programs.

"The GRT television channel of Gagauzia was already fined once earlier this month for its failure to present to the ACC in time the company's new broadcasting concept. We warned them then that if only they do not exclude the prohibited [Russian] news and political programs and continue behaving inadequately, the company may be fined 40 to 70 thousand lei", said Vicol.

He stated that the ACC shall not be providing subsidies for the production of locally-made TV programs intended for national minorities, if the programs are made in Russian.

"We have allocated 900,000 lei to underpin local TV companies in regions populated by national minorities. We've set only one condition to them: such programs must be made in the minority languages - with subtitles written in the Romanian language", stressed Vicol.

The chairman is insisting that programs about the Gagauzia culture must be made not in Russian but in the Gagauz language "because it is on the verge of extinction, and only old folks can understand and speak it. So we must support the language so that young people could speak it".

Earlier, the Gagauzia mass media reported that local television channels would not obey to the law on banning the "Russian propaganda", claiming that the regional companies are working on the basis of the broadcasting licenses issued to them by the Gagauzia Executive Committee [government] and not the central ACC. But the media watchdog regards these licenses as illegitimate.