Mazare has censured before!

ZIUA de Constanţa was banned from the press stands of Conpress Group, which has Radu Mazăre the mayor as shareholder.

On April 6, Radu Mazăre's company decided that nine years for distribution were enough and took out ZIUA de Constanţa from the press stands located on lands leased by Constanţa municipal.

The censuring action (word defined by Media Monitoring Agency in a report on the freedom of the press, as "circulation seizure") was asserted by representatives of our newspaper and denied by Radu Mazăre. And this in spite of the fact that from 6^th to 28^th of April 2009, the distribution company Tutun şi Ziare Ltd (its major shareholder is Conpress Group, the company having Mazăre as one of the shareholders) kept ordering copies of ZIUA de Constanţa, received those copies, transported them from Bucharest to Constanţa, but never distributed them with Conpress Group stands. And all this, in the opinion of the mayor Mazăre, implies neither censure nor ill will.

More than that, the mayor sent a press release stating that "regarding the buzzer signal (...) on our previous censuring other national newspapers, we should set out that these allegations are entirely false and untrue".

Jurnalul de Constanţa precedent

Nevertheless, if we inquire some of the reports issued along with time by Media Monitoring Agency, we may find out some different stories. In the Report on condition of the freedom of the press in Romania - Cases of harassment of journalists during 2001 - 2002, the agency is presenting the case of Jurnalul de Constanţa newspaper, "harassed because of criticism against the mayor" Radu Mazăre. You may find below excerpts from the report of Media Monitoring Agency for years 2001 - 2002: "On 17^th of January, Jurnalul de Constanţa journalists were evacuated from their editorial office by a bodyguard company. At 14.00 hrs, ten persons, all members of the Democrat Party, entered the office of the editor-in-chief, Emilia Belet. Elena Mocanu, the president of PD [Democrat Party] county organisation waved to the editor-in-chief a piece of paper, which, she pretended, would be the proof that the space occupied by the editorial office would become PD possession.

There was even a person who showed up out of the blue and introduced himself as RAEDPP  [Authority for Private and Public Domain Service] representative, without showing any badge to support his sayings, and started to seal the doors (only scotch tape, no seals). The president of the party was attended by bodyguards of Dragon Star company, ‘from the group of interest controlled by Radu Mazăre', as Jurnalul Naţional would say in its article ‘Mazăre's mafia wants to muzzle the media', published on 18^th of January. The journalists were thrown out. They could only have their clothes and bags. ‘Computers were running, files, documents and everything we held in the editorial office were left in the hand of those whose breaking into the office', Emilia Belet said. Besides the evacuation problem, the journalists also pointed out that that during the week previous to the event, Jurnalul de Constanţa failed to be locally distributed by the main distribution company, that is Conpress, which has the mayor Radu Mazăre as one of its shareholders. It was also emphasised the fact that, during the same time, Jurnalul de Constanţa copies distributed by Rodipet chain, were all bought in bundles, in order to prevent the population from accessing the information they were making public.

In order to counterbalance this boycott, the editor of Jurnalul used pedlars to distribute the newspaper. One of the national edition editors noticed that even in Bucharest and other places the newspaper failed to be distributed by Conpress stands. All these events are the a consequence to the fact that Jurnalul Naţional de Constanţa published a series of articles which related to possible illegal affairs of the mayor Mazăre".

CRP [Romanian Press Club]: "Serious abuse"

The distribution problems met by Jurnalul de Constanţa were also mentioned in the AMP [Media Monitoring Agency] article on "the freedom of the press in Romania, year 2003", chapter "Political pressure on media". The documents state that "with the help of Conpress company, owned by an ally of Radu Mazăre's, he holds control on press distribution in several South-Eastern counties. The only local newspaper having had the courage to write down the affairs of the mayor Mazăre was the daily newspaper Jurnalul de Constanţa. Consequently, on 24^th of December, only a few weeks after its first issue, Jurnalul de Constanţa was taken out of Conpress distribution chain, as there were published disclosures about Radu Mazăre's affairs.

Up to April 2003, Jurnalul de Constanţa partially solved the distribution problem, as it is sold together with Jurnalul Naţional, but even so, there were instances where Jurnalul Naţional was also not to be found on Constanţa market. A lot of companies do not advertise in this newspaper, for fear of the reaction of the local authorities. Jurnalul de Constanţa editorial office received the visits of all the institutions controlled by local authorities. Municipality Control Body controlled the advertising tax and the newspaper got fined as they didn't have the timetable posted on the door". On 10^th of October 2002, "Capital" magazine informed that the Romanian Press Club also sent a release to this respect, which stated that "such an intrusion into press distribution circuit is a serious abuse, affecting the citizens' right to be correctly informed, as the Constitution stipulates". The same magazine was drawing the attention to the fact that it was one of the few reactions that CRP had in respect to any local periodical.

"Young man, I will rub you off!"

One may easily notice the resemblance between "Jurnalul de Constanţa case" and the situation in which ZIUA de Constanţa is being found. There are even national periodicals which have been confronted with the problem of distribution in Mazăre's press stands. A similar situation has been told to us by Mircea Toma, journalist with "Academia Caţavencu" [national weekly newspaper] and president of Media Monitoring Agency. Toma recalls that during 2000 - 2001, the mentioned weekly periodical was threatened to be taken out of Conpress stands, by Radu Mazăre himself. One of "Caţavencu" writers, Alexandru Căutiş, special reporter, was called by phone and insulted by the mayor of Constanţa. Căutiş was actually preparing an article about Mazăre, so he asked the mayor some questions included in a fax message sent to him. Subsequently, he was contacted by Radu Mazăre. "I know that he told me ‘young man, I will rub you off!'", Căutiş said. On the other hand, Mircea Toma states that the problem of distribution ceasing was directly discussed with the management of "Academia Caţavencu" at that time. "We realised that we could lose 40% from our circulation. That article was published a year later, when the "Antenas" [television channels] backed up Jurnalul de Constanţa. I remember that even Ion Iliescu, the president of Romania at that time, was critical to this and asked everyone in local public administration to stop the abuses of any kind, the journalist Mircea Toma added.