Delegations of the OSCE Ministerial Council informed about the situation of political prisoners in the Transnistrian region
The Promo-LEX Association together with 120 other European civil society organizations, members of the "Civic Solidarity" Platform, submitted a Declaration to the OSCE Ministerial Council, addressing the situation of political prisoners in the Transnistrian region. The Declaration was adopted at the OSCE Annual Parallel Civil Society Conference held in Skopje on 29 November 2023.
The document was presented to the OSCE, as well as to the organization's 57 participating states, on the eve of the 30th meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council. According to the association, it highlights the cases of Victor Pleșcanov, Mihail Ermurachi and Vadim Pogorletchi, illegally detained on the left side of the Nistru for expressing opinions contrary to the Tiraspol regime.
Inconvenient people or those who promote and formulate ideas that contradict the propaganda or messages of the de facto administration, are immediately put through the procedures of the repressive system, lacking legitimacy and basic guarantees.
We remind you that Victor Plescanov is a civic activist from the Transnistrian region sentenced by an illegal court in Tiraspol to three years and two months of detention. In recent years, he has constantly had a speech and a critical position against the abuses committed in the Transnistrian region. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he criticized the abuses committed by the Russian army, including the illegality of its deployment to the left of the Nistru. Another activist from the region, 73-year-old Mihail Ermurachi, was sentenced to three years and six months of illegal detention for insulting the "leader" of the region and denying the positive role of the Nistru peacekeeping mission.
Another similar case is that of Vadim Pogorletchi. According to the "sentence", he allegedly photographed a paramilitary unit in Tiraspol, and later did not obey the requirements of the "mgb" representative to stop photographing the paramilitary object. By photographing the building, he would have violated the decision to extend the yellow terrorist alert code, issued by the leader of the region. Later, his relatives were informed about the initiation of a criminal case, the activist being accused of "treason".
Considering the frequency and intensity of abuses on the left side of the Nistru, the persecution of civic and political activists, the limitation of freedom of expression, the existence of a repressive local "legal framework", etc., the Promo-LEX Association reiterates the need to protect human rights, counteract the phenomenon of impunity and the immediate release and unconditional release of all political prisoners from the Transnistrian region.
