Human rights in Transnistria

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Transnistria
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Human rights of Transnistria have been under severe criticism from abroad. The Republic of Moldova, as well as other foreign states and non-governmental organizations claim that the government of Transnistria is authoritarian and has a poor human rights record, and is accused of arbitrary arrest and torture. With the stated aim of wanting to rectify its human rights record and bring it in line with European standards, Transnistria in 2006 established an independent ombudsman office.^[1]

1 Overview
2 Ilie Ilaşcu Group
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Overview

Some organizations claim that the right of free assembly or association is not fully respected and that religious freedom is limited by denying registration to Baptists, Methodists, and the Church of the Living God. Transnistrian authorities also reportedly accused Jehovah's Witnesses of lacking patriotism and spreading Western influence, and developed school teaching aids along those lines containing negative and defamatory information regarding the Jehovah's Witnesses.^[2]

The Republic of Moldova accuses the PMR administration of organizing incursions into some of the left-bank villages controlled by the Moldovan government such as Vasilevca, which they claim also result in arbitrary arrests, beatings and sometimes even deaths.

Several crimes made by paramilitarry forces of transnistrian government remained uninvestigated. According Helsinki Comitee for Human Rights in the Republic of Moldova, only in the village Chiţcani, between 1996 and 2000 were registered 20 killed persons, but nobody was engaged in investigation of those crimes, as Moldova declares that has no access, and the transnistrian authorities does not wish it to make investigations^[3].

According to a human rights report by the US Department of State, prisons in Transnistria are said to be harsh.^[4]

It is alleged that the trafficking of women is a serious problem in the territory, with both women from Moldova and Transnistria and women transported through from other countries.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8] Transnistria denies these allegations, claiming that no solid evidence have been provided so far.^[9]

The Transnistrian authorities reportedly continue to use torture and arbitrary arrest and detention. Transnistrian authorities harassed independent media, restricted freedom of association and of religion, and discriminated against Romanian-speakers.^[10]

Transnistrian local authorities put obstructions to public mother tongue education for ethnic Moldovans in the Latin script, insisting that any public educational institutions teaching the language use the official Cyrillic alphabet.

Arbitrary arrests of citizens, especially of pro-Moldovan and pro-Romanian political views, have likewise been reported.

[edit] Ilie Ilaşcu Group

A case of human rights violation is the arrest and trial of the leader of Christian Democratic Popular Party, Ilie Ilaşcu, who was arrested along with four other persons at their homes in Tiraspol in early days of June 1992. Ilie Ilaşcu, a politician who favoured Moldovan union with Romania, was sentenced to death by the Transnistrian government. He was released in 2001 amid international pressure.

In the case, they were charged with the murder of two "civil servants" and "terrorist crimes against PMR". It has been alleged that the real reason for their imprisonment was their political association or their lack of support for Transnistria. In December 1993 Ilie Ilaşcu was sentenced to death for war crimes and terrorism. During the trial, he was kept in reinforced iron cages, as he was considered "extremely dangerous". This decision was contested by various international human rights organizations, which cast doubt upon the fairness of the trial. For years, he was kept in solitary confinement without access to family or to medical assistance.

He was eventually released in 2001, two years after he lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights. He refused Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin's offer that he must abandon his lodged application with the European Court of Human Rights in exchange of the promised liberty of the other Romanians imprisoned in Transnistria.

In the case of Ilaşcu and Others v. Moldova and Russia (2004), the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights found their detention arbitrary and it did not recognized the sentence. ^[11] It also demanded Moldova and Russia to take all necessary measures to put an end to the two Ilie Ilaşcu Group members, Andrei Ivanţoc and Tudor Petrov-Popa, still imprisoned in Transnistria.