09/04/2009 / MOLDOVA
Moldova riots: beware of misinformation on Twitter
The media, particularly in the US, have stressed the innovative use of Web-based platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in the build-up to the protests gripping Moldova. However, the Internet is also being used by both camps to spread false rumours and fabricate conspiracy theories. Here is a startling example of possible misinformation on Twitter.
A Web user raised our attention to this photo. It was published on a blog, with the mention “communist conspiracy”, as well as on several Moldovan media.
The image has been used as proof that the communists in power manipulated the demonstrators in order to lure the protest movement into violence. The men on the roof of the building are described as bogus protesters, escorted by a policeman (with a cap). The men are supposedly hoisting a flag of the European Union on top of the Moldovan parliament. According to this theory, the move is a communist ploy to excite the crowd and then blame the opposition for the ensuing riots.
The conspiracy theory is currently spreading on the Net, particularly via Twitter. Web users add their own false information, including the claim that the Romanian flag is being hoisted above that of the EU. This is wrong. The flag in the picture is Moldova’s, even though the two are very similar. The assertion is particularly sensitive given the present context. Indeed, Moldova’s communist president has accused neighbouring Romania of stirring up the riots. Hence, Web users are here implying that the president put the Romanian flags up so that he could then point the finger at Bucharest.
In the end, none of this appears to be correct. One of the leaders of the protest, Oleg Brega, whom we already spoke to yesterday, gave us his view of what really happened. He says the men on the picture are real protesters. The police allegedly allowed them to hoist the EU flag in the hope that this might calm the crowd and quell the riots. This would explain why the policeman with the cap isn’t trying to hide. For Oleg, the photo just shows that, at the time, the authorities had “capitulated”.
If you have any information either supporting or contradicting the theory that the protesters were manipulated please send us your comment.
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Moldova Riots
Submitted by James hamilton (not verified) on Thu, 30/04/2009 - 15:25.This is a great site the article has been very very helpful and i would recommend it, and some good points have been made here, this what blogging should be about.
Unregistered user
I was there but I'm not realy an organiser
Submitted by Oleg Brega on Mon, 13/04/2009 - 13:15.Ghenadie, one of my brothers was between organizers of the protests on Monday, but on the next day he was not in the street, because he was accused in organizing illegal demonstrations.
I was here on 7th of April (in front of the Parliament building, one of my colleagues from was in front of the Presidency building), filming for JurnalTV.md, and I saw how two or three protestants were discussing with the police at the entrance, to let them put the EU flag on top. One or two of them tried to enter for this, but they were sent to the back of the building with the blue flag.
My colleague said the same happened at the Presidency.
Also, we both filmed how the Romanian flag was erected in front of the Government building, may be in the morning of the 7th of April.
I don't know who were the persons involved in this operation and why police permitted them to do this, but I know for sure that on top of the building were protestants and police who is protecting the buildings.
Oleg Brega
Evidence in support of the communist conspiracy theory
Submitted by John Doe (not verified) on Sun, 12/04/2009 - 17:14.It appears that the journalists found evidence that the person who erected the EU and Romanian flags on both buildings (Parliament and Presidency headquarters) is employed by the Moldovan Secret Services. There are currently on the internet 3 videos showing how that person is trying to compromise the demonstrations of two opposition parties during the campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjGAv44Z-WY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fanalizemd%2...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfBJtSpQVlw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fanalizemd%2...
http://www.protv.md/stiri/social/protest-si-antiprotest-in-fata-guvernul...
In one video he pretends, in front of the cameras of a pro-government television (Omega TV), to be a protester at a demonstration organised by PLDM (Partidul Liberal Democrat) and to have received money for his participation. The pro-government televisions circulated the video extensively to claim that the opposition is bribing its suporters. In another video, the same person pretends the same things during a demonstration organised by AMN (Alianta Moldova Noastra). In another video, the person is already taking part in an anti-AMN counter-demonstration.
Yesterday, the Chisinau based ProTV aired a news-item about the alleged provocateur. It is in Romanian and can be seen here: http://www.protv.md/filme/cine-este-tanarul-din-imagine.html#32988
Similar infomation can be found at the following address: http://analizemd.blogspot.com/2009/04/videofoto-dovezi-ce-ar-mai-putea-a...
It would appear that there are more and more information to support the theory of conspiracy.
Best regards.
Unregistered user
First victim of the police!!!
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Sun, 12/04/2009 - 09:14."A young man of 23 years old died after being cruelly beaten by the police, the deceased family declared!!!
Valeriu Boboc, a young man of 23 years old, died because of the police. The family does not know exactly the cause of death, but believes the young man died after being cruelly beaten by the police because his body is full of bruises. The official police version is that the young man was poisoned with smoke during the protest of April 7.
"Valeriu was arrested Tuesday, but we found out about it only on Friday", said Marcel Boboc, the brother of the victim.
Valeriu Boboc was was married and had a child a year and a half old."
Source: http://unimedia.md/?mod=news&id=10309
Unregistered user
correction: "the family of
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Sun, 12/04/2009 - 09:15.correction: "the family of the deceased declared"
Unregistered user
The France24 observer who
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Sat, 11/04/2009 - 23:41.The France24 observer who wrote this should be kicked out of the organization.
So far, I know these facts:
- President Voronin stated that he deliberately allowed protesters to enter the building by withdrawing all security forces; this is enough to support the theory that we witnessed a communist ploy to excite the crowd and then blame the opposition for the ensuing riots
- there were 30,000 protesters last tuesday; now they gather by hundreds or less
- there are images of people beaten and kidnapped in the streets by civilians that one may only assume they belong to special units in the secret police
- Journalists have been kidnapped and kept in custody police without warrant on a regular basis
- western borders are closed and EU Romanian citizens are required visas
- Romanian ambassador was declared persona non grata
- the "evidence" they produced to accuse Romania: consultancy by Romanian political parties for Moldovan political parties; that media in Romania labeled demonstration as "revolution" (if I look at France24 I expect the French ambassador to be expelled as well) and 1 individual with a funny name Jordan was arrested
- there are people in the Romanian embassy who request political asylum
- a student from France who acted as translator for foreign journalists has been severely beaten by police
- there are reports of around 100 missing protesters and the death of some of them; schools are stormed by police in search of dissidents.
What I think: If Voronin accepted the idea that any citizen has a fundamental right to express political opinions and gather to protest in the streets, he would have been the winner. Now, by trying to silence them through brutality, beatings, kidnappings, killings, closing borders and manipulation he will eventually loose.
Unregistered user
Are you blind?
Submitted by Ruslan (not verified) on Sat, 11/04/2009 - 09:31.France 24 are blind?! KGB paid you?! Look at the other pictures, watch youtube, watch TV from Romania, and you will see the 3 flags: modovian, romanian, and EU on the building. You will see how police bring pavement stones for "students"! one time they used feces instead of water cannon to irritate the crowd!
Unregistered user
Hi Ruslan, I'm totally
Submitted by free_moldova (not verified) on Sat, 11/04/2009 - 23:30.Hi Ruslan,
I'm totally against communists and yes, there are so many photos and movies showing the communists put the flags, and that they instigated to violence.
But you seem to be doing the same mistake as France 24, meaning to accuse or to state something without proof. You don't know why France 24 wrote the article like that, and you certainly don't know that they are payed by KGB (you don't even know that they are on the communists' side - hopefully they aren't). Maybe that was what they thought, maybe they were careless to take Oleg's opinion and present it as their own, and not verify enough additional sources of information (pictures, videos etc). Maybe they were just wrong. You can't know.
I refuse to believe that with all the proofs that followed, with all the videos of people beaten up by the police, and with all the journalists kidnapped, France 24 will not realize that the actions of the communists are beyond any limit. They are capable of anything, and they stop from nothing. They can arrest students while they are holding flowers. They can beet them up to death. They can threaten, they can kidnap journalists and people who work in the parliament. They can lie, and invent anything, as long as it fits their purposes. They were prepared to shoot at students who were protesting peacefully, and holding flowers. This is why many students didn't dare to show up in PMAN anymore, because they got anonymous messages warning them to stay home if they want to live. And the communists WOULD indeed kill students while they are holding flowers. They wouldn't stop from anything. It DID happen in Romanian revolution in '89!
My point is, the last thing we want is to turn EU or the international press against us by careless comments or accusations without proofs. I understand we all want the communists out. But please take the example of the students protesting in PMAN with FLOWERS. We are peaceful, and we don't make unjustified accusations. That is what Voronin does when accusing Romania and the west without any single proof. We need the help of EU. And we need to show the world we are neither violent, nor vandals, nor careless. We just want freedom, democracy, and a better future, without living under terror. We are desperate. EU, we need your help.
Unregistered user
Please watch
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 18:03.Please watch http://unimedia.info/ for more photos and films, showing evidence. Pay attention to that boy that put the flags on BOTH the parliament and presidency. Also there are testimonies of students who were kidnapped and beaten by the police. It's shocking. Journalists were also kidnapped.
Here is a translation of one of the testimonies (unfortunately incomplete, the translator, a student from twitter, didn't understand all words, which are marked by 4 curly brackets):
http://shorttext.com/zyt75k9
A complete version will most probably be available soon. But you can still get the point.
Unregistered user
I support all the comments
Submitted by Moldavian (not verified) on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 00:24.I support all the comments posted here. Your article fails to show the reality.You have no evidence and despite this you express YOUR opinion as sure facts. Do you know how is to live in Moldova, where nowadays people are afraid to leave their homes, where students are taken from schools or universities and maltreated and where nobody knows if their relatives will return at home? I am very disappointed with you and your article.
We really do believe in you, but I see that we shouldn't......
Unregistered user
Same answer as below. On
Submitted by Team Observers on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 09:39.Same answer as below. On this web site, you're welcome to post your own thoughts and facts. We don't deny that some protesters have been manipulated. We don't know about that. We're only giving our Observer's view on that particular scene (flag on top of the parliament). He was among the protesters and that's his version of what happened. We thought it was worth publishing.
Team Observers
Could you please translate
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 19:56.Could you please translate the French comments in English as well? And the English comments in French? That would be very nice. Thank you.
Unregistered user
Please try to only present
Submitted by downwcommies (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 19:08.Please try to only present objective facts, rather than draw your own conclusions. Or base the conclusions on clear proofs. What you described is a self-made, highly unrealistic scenario, with no proof to back it up. Students were there in pman and saw how some people (not all young!) instigated to violence. There are videos and pictures to back that up. There are witnesses from the parliament who know what happened. The crowd of course followed by throwing with stones and breaking into the buildings, but they were provoked. And they did not reach the roof. The following day they realized it and the protests were peaceful. Even so, the police kept arresting them.
And none of this is new information...
Unregistered user
On this web site, you're
Submitted by Team Observers on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 20:25.On this web site, you're welcome to post your own thoughts and facts. We don't deny that some protesters have been manipulated. We're only giving our Observer's view on that particular scene (flag on top of the parliament). He was among the protesters and that's his version of what happened. We thought it was worth publishing.
Team Observers
It is of course a good thing
Submitted by helpMoldova (not verified) on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 10:29.It is of course a good thing to present your Observer's view, but you presented HIS view as YOUR own. If you keep neutral and just say what the observer said, it's all fine. Or if you don't keep neutral, it's again fine, as long as you have evidence (pictures, movies, MORE THAN 1 witness etc). There are other witnesses who disagree with him. And there are pictures and videos that prove him wrong (just see unimedia.info and unimedia.md, when the communists 'allow' them to work). But this doesn't necessarily mean that there's a contradiction between the two opinions.
If you want to build up scenarios, here's another one, just to show you YOURS is not the only one possible. Your observer might believe what he is saying. He did see those people vandalizing, but how does he know who they were? How does he know if they were real students (and even calls them "drog users" (based on what?)). He has no proof of anything, he's only presenting a personal opinion. Which you shouldn't take for granted. The real students protesting came there for certain values, for freedom and democracy. They were not drug users. The 20 people Oleg saw could very well have been instigators, since they were behaving soo differently from the rest of the crowd (the students)(see your article "People are yelling 'Down with the Communists' and 'Libertate'"). But Oleg may have not known that, and he assumed they were drug users. This is HIS opinion, so please don't take it as YOURS without proof. Nothing stops you from presenting it as HIS opinion though.
Besides, his point is that he helped starting the protests on Monday morning, but then they degenerated into violence. He's only trying to clear his name, declaring he did not get involved in the violence that followed. Ok, so far so good. But that does not mean he knows exactly or has any proof who started the violence, and whether there were or were not instigators in the crowd. He is saying students also entered the buildings, and they also threw stones. It's true, but that's not what we are denying. People have lived enough in poorness and terror, and it's easy to provoke an UNORGANIZED crowd. It's what the communists were counting on. We are saying the communists tried to create the violence in order to drag the attention from the stolen votes to the vandalism. And they succeeded on the 7th. Now people have planned on twitter to show up with flowers today, so you can see they have no intention for vandalism.
There was a ROMANIAN flag on the presidency: unimedia.info, 17:37, and Voronin used it to accuse Romania: unimedia.info, 20:14. It seems there are students on the roof, but they can't have got there without the proper keys. In a communist country (!), not any policeman has the keys and can simply take a decision ON HIS OWN to allow students on the roof, and put the Romanian flag there. They were authorized to do so by the heads of the communism, and (strangely enough, as if it was PLANNED - but the students didn't plan anything - flags were put in BOTH the presidency AND the parliament). The police might have LOOKED like they wanted to calm the spirits, and they might have invoked that reason. But it is clear the truth is another. Please also check unimedia.info for the latest video with the boy.
We are putting all our hope in UE, we can't live under the communists anymore. Please, just think of what will happen now with the arrested students, if communists don't leave. What will happen to our future, in a country where the communists have shown they have all the power, can do any crime, and nothing can stop them? They beat students up to the blood, deny our human rights, our freedom to information... Help us.
Unregistered user
Thanks
Submitted by Team Observers on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 11:20.HelpMoldova,
Thanks a lot for this very argumented comment. It gives our readers the possibility to make up their own mind, which is exactly what we expect on this web site. If you register on our web site and contact us via the "send a tip" button, we'll add you as one of our Observers and you'll then be able to provide our editorial team with information and comments. Regards,
Team Observers
There is no conspiracy and
Submitted by Pro (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 16:08.There is no conspiracy and on the photo there are no real protestors, but conspirators. It is not that easy to gain access to the roof, only 3 people have access to it.
It would not be possible for protestors to gain access to the roof, because the access is via a door that is always kept locked and is made of steal.
A better quality of the picture you can find on:
www.unimedia.md
Unregistered user
Thanks. It's certainly not
Submitted by Team Observers on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 16:32.Thanks. It's certainly not possible to access the roof without authorisation from the police. And that's what we're saying: the police may have allowed protesters to get on the roof thinking it would calm down the crowd.
Team Observers
One more thing. It is said
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 17:54.One more thing. It is said that not just any policeman had keys to the roof, but only very few (3) important people. So it can't have been just some policemen authorizing the students to access the roof and put the flags there, unless they had orders from above. And then Voronin used the flags as a 'proof' to accuse Romania of coup d'etat...
Besides, do you really think Voronin just decided to "calm the spirits down"? And peacefully convince (or maybe nicely ask them) the students to give up?! The police later arrested students from schools or from the streets, beat people up, took them to whatever places, beat them some more trying to scary them, threatened them to not come to PMAN again, and then released some of them. Many are still reported missing, and noone has a clue what happened to them. Students who were not even there on the 7th (when all the violence was) were still arrested.
This sounds more like inducing fear and terror, not trying to calm spirits down. For what police did, check this out: http://analizemd.blogspot.com/2009/04/marturii-socante-ale-victimelor-ca.... The video is long and unfortunately in Romanian, but it's important and hopefully someone will translate it. It's about how students were taken by the police to some unknown place, beaten up, threatened, and then released.
Check the video from (UPDATE 17:37, local time), from http://unimedia.info/ to see the Romanian flag on the roof.
About the keys to the offices, here's part of the translation from the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEg1skTgesg (starting at min 4:47)
[…] Last evening, at half past 7, I went in the parliament to see. I had some answers to some very important interpellations, also against the communists, and I wanted to know if by any chance they remained. I went to the 8th floor, there was smoke, and I found, strangely, that my door was not broken or anything like that. It was unlocked! It means that not by these children, because they had no keys, it means that some of them [the communists] unlocked the door, entered, took things out. How could the monitor appear in the armchair, when the motor stays on the table? I mean on the armchair, and the armchair upside down?
[…] It means that what happened last night in the parliament, with flash lighets (by no means these children didn’t have flash lights with them) it means that the police went and did all this disaster in the parliament […]
Unregistered user
when the monitor stays on
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 17:57.when the monitor stays on the table*
Sorry about the typo.
Unregistered user
The same way they unlocked
Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 17:15.The same way they unlocked the offices (with keys!!) and took documents out? To calm the people down?
Unregistered user
Please, do you have any
Submitted by free_moldova (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 15:32.Please, do you have any proof of that? There are witnesses saying that only 3 people had access to the roof, and they were communists. Others working in the building said that the doors were UNLOCKED (=> with KEYS) and NOT FORCED, and important documents were taken away in order to destroy evidence. Do the students have keys by ant chance?!
Check this out: http://pastebin.ca/1386952 (use google translate) and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEg1skTgesg. Sorry, no translation for that (as far as I know), but maybe someone will be kind enough to translate it soon.
Besides, look here: http://unimedia.info/ and check the blue UE flag from the other picture!! Is that Moldavian flag too?
Please back up all your statements! With evidence!!
Free Moldova!! No more communists! No more terror! Free media, free internet!
Unregistered user
Check this out:
Submitted by free_moldova (not verified) on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 15:55.Check this out: http://unimedia.info/ :
Tomorrow, when it is planned the next big protest, electricity will be cut in unusual many streets and localities from Moldova. Also, it is surprising that the price of inter-urban bus tickets have rised today.
and this: http://ufmoldova.com/announces/?aid=3e75480f2c3bf4f208328408248c4f4f
(sorry, again Romanian, use google translate).
So what do you call this? Coincidence? Or are they trying to cut all access to information (what's left of it)?
UE, please help us. We need you. We want democracy, we want freedom.
Unregistered user