The rights of recruits and conscripts in the Transnistrian region are blatantly violated, as they are commonly subjected to torture and expropriation, while the Moldovan authorities do little to defend their rights, according to the human rights NGO Promo-LEX Association.

The situation of Transnistria’s conscripts was discussed Thursday at an international conference titled “The Rights of Recruits and Servicemen in Moldova’s Eastern Region: A Parallel with other Conflict Areas in the CIS”, whose conclusions will be submitted to the Moldovan authorities.

Alexandru Zubco, legal department coordinator of Promo-LEX’s Resource Center for Transnistria, says that each year around 6,000 young men are enrolled in the region’s paramilitary forces; many of these recruits are robbed by the illegitimate authorities before being forcibly enrolled. “These young men are recruited by force, being forced to swear an oath of allegiance to an illegitimate regime. While being actually citizens of Moldova, they are forced to serve an illegitimate regime and fight against Moldova”, says the lawyer.

Alexandru Zubco insists that the Moldovan government should intervene. “There are certain concrete steps that the Government could take. First and foremost, the Moldovan Government should enroll those young men in its own lists for future conscription. As soon as this is done, the separatist regime will not be actually able to register them for conscription. This is a first step that needs to be taken by the legitimate authorities”.

A second step, according to him, is to bring the paramilitary leaders to justice. The Moldovan Criminal Code makes it a crime to organize and command paramilitary units, but no such proceedings have been initiated to date.

Alexandru Zubco went to add that the young men who refuse conscription into the Transnistrian paramilitary forces are taken by force, which basically amounts to kidnapping.

Promo-LEX director Ion Manole noted that the 500,000 people living in the Transnistrian region are discriminated against by the Moldovan state authorities. “These people suffer discrimination because they don’t have equal access to justice and other national legal instruments and mechanisms. The authorities haven’t created conditions, and are not even thinking of creating them, so as to guarantee the fundamental rights and liberties enshrined in the country’s Constitution as well as in the international documents which Moldova is a signatory to”, said Ion Manole.

Alexandru Postica, also a lawyer with Promo-Lex, stated that the young men who refuse conscription are often subjected to torture. He recounted a recent case in which a young man was tortured for not accepting to serve in the region’s paramilitary forces. Having attempted desertion, he was found dead half a year later. “Bullying practices inherited from the Soviet era are widespread in those units. This happens because of a lack of transparency and monitoring of the recruits’ situation”, concluded the lawyer.

Source: Info-prim.md

Amnesty International Moldova, in collaboration with the Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims “Memoria” and Promo-Lex, held an event last Friday June 24 in support of the victims of torture.
The open air concert “Music Against Torture!” was held in Stefan cel Mare park in central Chisinau. From 6pm onwards local bands, including Street Symphony, Experience Band and Sweet Mama’s Mojo Juice, took to the makeshift stage, which was setup on top of a bridge over one of the park’s fountains.

The event was funded by the United Nations Development Program, and was dedicated to the campaign activities to support UN International Day of Victims of Torture – 26 June.

Sursa: Azi.md

With less than 200 votes separating the leading candidates, the June 19th mayoral runoff in Chisinau, Moldova’s capitol, was reflective of the stark political divide and competitive electoral environment of the past few years.

Observers from Promo-LEX, a leading Moldovan civil society organization, strategically deployed nonpartisan citizen observers to report on the process and results in both the June 5th nationwide local elections and June 19th runoff in Chisinau. Their innovative approach, combining statistical sampling nationwide and comprehensive coverage in three key locations in the first round, and comprehensive coverage of all polling stations in Chisinau for the 2nd round of that city’s mayoral election, helped confirm official results in both rounds of the competitive local races.

In the lead up to the elections, Promo-LEX faced a common challenge for observers of local elections. They wanted to be able to comment on the quality of the electoral process across the country while also verifying the results of races in major cities.

To focus on the national trends, they drew a random statistical sample of polling stations and deployed observers to those polling stations, using a methodology known as statistical based observation (SBO) or quick count. The 190 observers deployed nationally reported back on the quality of the process on election day, noting few irregularities in the majority of polling stations but alarmingly high incidents of intimidation and attempts to influence voters (13% and 24% of cases, respectively). Those observers who were not in the three selected municipalities, focused only on the process not on vote tallies.

Vote tallies were more important in the most competitive races, which is why Promo-LEX decided to conduct comprehensive parallel vote tabulations (PVTs) in three metropolitan centers in the first round: Chisinau, Balti and Comrat. PVT observers were deployed to all polling stations in those three cities to collect vote tallies and compare them to official results. Promo-LEX shared their findings with the public in several official press statements.

In both rounds of elections, Promo-LEX observers were able to tabulate the vote totals and project estimates matched the Central Election Commission’s figures, including the extremely small margin of victory in Chisinau. As Promo-LEX continues to monitor any potential post-electoral complaints, the organization has filled an important role of providing a nonpartisan assessment of the process, strengthening the public’s trust in the electoral process in general, and the votes Count in particular.

Source: Qndem.org

The difference of 0.06 percentage point between the results of a parallel counting of votes cast in the Chisinau mayoral elections on June 19, which was conducted by the NGO Promo-LEX, and the official results was due to the fact that at a polling station in Botanica district (no.1/25) the order of the candidates’ registration in the count protocol was inverse, Info-Prim Neo reports.

Promo-LEX is announcing this correction after finishing the physical processing and manual computation of the vote count protocols, the organization said in a press release.

According to corrected data, Dorin Chirtoaca polled 50.60% or 186,916 votes, and Igor Dodon 49.40% or 182,494 votes.

The results announced by Promo-LEX on June 20, the next day after the elections, differed by 0.06 percentage point from those announced by the Central Election Commission. Later it was found that a technical error explained the difference: when processing results by telephone, it wasn’t noticed that the order of the candidates in the count protocol had been wrong and as a result the 552 votes for Dorin Chirtoaca were attributed to Igor Dodon, and the 770 votes for Dodon went to Chirtoaca. To save time, operators don’t use names, but codes with ordinal numbers, Promo-LEX further explained.

On June 20, Promo-LEX presented the following results: 50.66% for Dorin Chirtoaca and 49.34% for Igor Dodon; which were nevertheless very close to the CEC results: 50.60% and 49.40%, respectively.

Source: Info-prim.md