Why has Mazare forbidden ZIUA de Constanta?!

The press stands which prohibited our newspaper are owned by Conpres Group Ltd, and one of its shareholders is the mayor of Constanţa, Radu Mazăre 

As you may have noticed, the newspaper ZIUA de Constanţa cannot be found any longer in Conpress Group stands. Starting from 6^th of April this year, our readers pointed us that ZIUA de Constanţa ceased to be sold by Conpress Group stands; our newspaper should have been distributed by Tutun şi Ziare Ltd. The standing orders which should have been distributed by the same company also ceased to include the local edition of ZIUA newspaper.

After a check on what our readers informed us, we have come to the conclusion that the state is real and was also confirmed by the sellers in the newspaper distribution places in which the newspaper providers are Tutun şi Ziare Ltd. More over, persons in charge of the stands told us that they would not receive the newspaper any longer, as they superiors informed them. But how have we come to this? The single shareholder of Tutun şi Ziare Ltd is the company Conpress Group Ltd, and one of its shareholders is the mayor of Constanţa, Radu Mazăre.

This company owns 85% from press distribution in Constanţa. That is, they have a monopoly. As our newspaper policy has always been equidistant and had shown both positive and negative aspects of local public administration and of activity of the mayor Radu Mazăre, we are left no other choice but to state that the mayor is troubled by our presence on Constanţa media market and that ceasing to distribute ZIUA de Constanţa newspaper in Conpress Group stands can only be seen as a form of prohibition.

Feri Predescu - the first "thorn"

It's true that, starting from the end of November 2008, Tutun şi Ziare Ltd informed that "because of high logistical costs", the found themselves in the impossibility of distributing ZIUA de Constanţa. But not only ZIUA de Constanţa. The letter dated 28^th of November 2008 was followed by other documents mentioning the same aspect, having no outcome though. Actually, the documents issued by Tutun şi Ziare Ltd may be considered warnings of the distribution company to the articles published by our daily newspaper.

As mentioned before, the first letter signed by the manager of Tutun şi Ziare Ltd on 28^th of November 2008, two days after ZIUA de Constanţa showed solidarity to the journalist Feri Predescu and joined the demarche of supporting her in raising all the money she needed to pay the amends to Radu Mazăre the mayor.(//www.ziuaconstanta.ro/rubrici/social/...).

"Freedom" of the press

The trial between Mazăre and Feri Predescu was mentioned in the report of the USA State Department on civil rights in Romania, in the section. This reports state that in June 2008, PSD [Social Democrat Party] won the trial against journalist Feri Predescu, who "accused him of being connected to local transgressors". "Feri Predescu, at that time local correspondent with TVR [the National Television] and ‘Evenimentul Zilei' [a national daily newspaper], was sentenced to pay amends to Mazăre and to publish an open letter of apologise in one national newspaper and one local newspaper", the report shows. The department also mentioned the reaction of Press Monitoring Agency, Active Watch, which disapproved the sentence of the court and which, together with the general secretary of the reporters without frontiers, signed a petition to sustain Feri Predescu. The next document foreboding the forbidding of ZIUA de Constanţa newspaper from Conpress Group press stands was signed by the same manager mentioned above, on 11^th of March 2009.

70% or not. That is the question!

In our March 25 edition, this year, we were providing you information about the land which the judge sentencing Feri Predescu in the Mazăre trial, Beatrice Mariş had received from the mayor, by means of mayor disposition, in respect to Law 10/2001 (//www.ziuaconstanta.ro/rubrici/deschidere-editie/...). And the climax of this state of affairs was reached when publishing the article "Mazăre: ‘I was voted by 70% of Constanţa inhabitants' Wrong: He was NOT voted by 70% of Constanţa inhabitants" (//www.ziuaconstanta.ro/rubrici/deschidere-editie/...), published by ZIUA de Constanţa on 31^st of March 2009. We gather that this was the motive which led to us being forbidden from Conpress Group stands.

Awaiting for Mazăre's reaction

We have chosen not to go public with the fact that we have been forbidden from Conpress Group press stands as soon as this became crystal clear, as we had no intention of spoiling the Passion Week. In spite of this, Tutun şi Ziare Ltd made use of this communist policy and forbid the distribution of ZIUA de Constanţa newspaper one week before the celebration of Christ Resurrection. Consequently we consider it necessary to inform the public opinion about interdicting a newspaper considered by the chief of the Municipality and of the County Council as an opposing one. ZIUA de Constanţa is informing their readers that we will have our own tools of distributing a larger number of copies as before, which will fill out our online edition on www.ziuadeconstanta.ro. We are being realistic and we expect to be threatened and attacked by Radu Mazăre, still we will inform our readers about the progress of this. We are also awaiting the reaction of Radu Mazăre about forbidding our newspaper from the press stands he owns.

On www.ziuadeconstanta.ro website you may access all the documents proving all the above, together with short movies with Conpress Group press stands, mails and sms-es from our readers showing that  ZIUA de Constanţa is no longer found in those press distribution stands.

[label]TUTUN SI ZIARE SRL (RO)[/label]