Chisinau – May 30, 2019, Council for preventing and eliminating discrimination held the presentation of Guidance for the inclusion of the measurement of minorities in the electoral activities of electoral authorities, electors and media.

‘This guidance is an important resource for changing the activity of electoral bodies and mass media institutions regarding minorities. Written in accessible language, it offers primal principles for protection of minorities and applicable recommendations for further transformations’, – highlighted Ian Feldman, President of the Council.

The guidance represents a response of many experts in the Monitoring Report about the Integration of Minorities in Pre-electoral Activities of Electoral Bodies and Media for the period of November 2018 and February 2019. According to it, often media publishes inappropriate information about minority groups (ethnic, linguistic and religious), it uses incorrect terminology and translations pointing the ethnicity in the process of identifying criminals as well as does not present information in the language of minorities.

Rarely are ethnic minorities presented in the media of Moldova, only in some publication about their cultural features. Speaking about religious denominations, information about Orthodox believers prevails information about other confessions. The report preceded the guidance and was elaborated by the Human Rights Information Center, which monitored the most popular news broadcasts including political party web pages.

To avoid this kind of situations, based on the results, a set of recommendations was developed in the Guide for the integration of minorities in pre-electoral activities of electoral bodies and media in order to help media to become more objective and to present the multi-ethnic character of the country.

Moreover, this Guide has a practical section for influencers and participants in the electoral process. This one gives the advice to use in an active way minority languages and to apply appropriate vocabulary in approaching minorities.

The Guide was developed by the Human Rights Information Center within the project “Promoting the Human Rights Approach to Minorities in Elections”. The project is implemented with the financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and implemented by the Human Rights Information Center in collaboration with the Council for Preventing and Eliminating of Discrimination and Equality and the Minority Youth Moldova.