What was the environment like for civil society organizations (CSOs) and Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in Moldova? What kind of attacks did they face last year? The answers to these questions can be found in the publication “Radiography of Attacks on Civil Society Organizations and Human Rights Defenders in the Republic of Moldovaˮ, produced by the Legal Resources Centre from Moldova (LRCM). The aim of the radiography is to document the information and events that deteriorate the environment for CSOs and HRDs.

The efforts of monitoring and documenting the attacks were necessary in the context of many independent CSOs becoming the target of discrediting and denigrating actions, especially after they have supported reform processes. In this publication, the LRCM team presented, in chronological order, the attacks against nongovernmental organisations, media organisations and HRDs.

By attacks, the authors of the radiography refer to statements and actions of politicians, the publication of articles in certain media outlets of questionable reputation or public interventions, including online, which portray the non-profit sector as organisations promoting the interests of foreign countries, serving the interests of political parties or wasting millions on useless reforms. Attacks on the HRDs include mockery of their work, often expressed on social media, as well as image defamation or attempts to intimidate them into abandoning their civic stance and determination to promote fundamental human rights.

The LRCM team has been conducting such analyses of attacks on CSOs and HRDs since 2016, and the current edition has been developed within the project “Shields for Human Rights Defenders – Supporting Human Rights Defenders in the Republic of Moldovaˮ, implemented by the LRCM, in partnership with EcoContact Association and the International Commission of Jurists, with the financial support of the European Union.

Another useful information resource for CSOs and HRDs, created within the same project, is the infographic on the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. It explains how a complaint can be submitted to the Special Rapporteur, what a complaint to the Special Rapporteur should include, how the complaint assessment process takes place and what the Special Rapporteur can do. Both resources, developed and made available online, are intended to help CSOs and citizens in general to understand the nature of the phenomenon of denigration of the civically and socially active people, as well as to learn more about the mechanisms for reporting human rights violations available at the level of UN structures.