Moldova joins anti-Russian coalition: 4 TV channels fined for re-broadcasting Russian programs

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Moldova Suspends Russia’s Rossiya-24 TV Channel Until 2015

Moldova's authorities have on Tuesday fined four local TV channels for re-broadcasting Russian programs over "anti-Ukrainian coverage of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine."

Moldova's decision to ban Russia 24 TV news channel for the next six months until January 1, 2015 is outrageous and will certainly produce a negative impact on the Russian-Moldovan relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in July.

"It is clear that Moldova took this step under a far-fetched pretext on the wave of euphoria from signing an association agreement with the European Union. However, the decision does not meet an integral right of citizens to free access to information, one of the basic European democratic principles, which Chisinau is zealously trying to observe," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

Moldova has banned rebroadcasting of Russia's Russia 24 television channel being driven by the desire to please the United States and the European Union, Konstantin Starysh, a lawmaker with the Party of Communists and former chief of the Moldovan office of the MIR television company, told TASS.

"Nearly half of lawmakers were against the ratification of Moldova's Association Agreement with the European Union out of fears that it might complicate relations with Russia," he said. "The authorities tried to persuade us that they would do their best to remain in good relations with the strategic partner. And here is their first step - to ban Russian television channels on the territory of the republic."