PUBLIC APPEAL/Regarding the guarantee of rights for education in the transnistrian region of Moldova

The campaign “Save Transnistrian Schools” was launched and will take place during May. The goal of the campaign is to show solidarity with the pupils, their parents and teachers, who are studying and working in the educational institutions with Romanian as teaching language, located in the transnistrian region of Moldova, but also to inform the larger public about the problems of the latter.

We appeal to all those who are not indifferent to the faith of the schools from the transnistrian region to pledge for the guarantee of the right of each person from the region to study in their mother tongue and in the institution they chose to. There is a risk that as of 1 September 2014, the eight institutions (in which 1650 pupils are still studying) will be shut down. All the details regarding the actions and events within the Campaign can be followed on www.promolex.md and on Facebook.

PUBLIC APPEAL

Regarding the guarantee of rights for education in the transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova

The right to education is a fundamental one, which has to ensure the development of the person as well as the respect for the wish of the parents to ensure that the education of their children is according to their own religious and philosophical convictions.

The educational program of the institutions under the control of the de facto administration from Tiraspol and the program of institutions under the jurisdiction of the constitutional authorities of Moldova differ, but the main difference remains to be the script used in the education process. The eight institutions that are under the jurisdiction of the central constitutional government use Latin script. Generally, these institutions, implicitly the teachers, pupils and their parents are in the role of hostages. Their situation worsens every time the de facto administration of the region wants to send a message or to exercise certain pressure over the constitutional authorities, or in the event they want to obtain something in the negotiation format of the conflict resolution.

The intimidations come under the form of: illegal detainment of teachers, confiscation of material goods and assets owned by the institutions, application of fines, organization of discussions with the parents of the pupils where the parents are attempted to be convinced to transfer the pupils to schools in Cyrillic, intimidation of pupils by the law enforcement forces, imposing higher rent prices and other actions that follow the goal of intimidation and, ultimately, shutting down these institutions.

We consider that the issue of intimidation of the schools from the region and that of respect for rights to education can be solved only through an active and prompt involvement of the public opinion and of the international community. Any person individually, or institution collectively, can take part in the monitoring process of the situation of the eight schools from the transnistrian region of Moldova, through knowing about this problem, and supporting the pupils and showing solidarity with these groups.

In case the de facto administration will further recourse to intimidation and prosecution of teachers, pupils and their parents, we solicit the application of sanctions against individuals and groups of persons that will be guilty of further infringing the rights of these categories of people.

In this context, we, the undersigned, solicit the Government of the Republic of Moldova, International Community, and the Government of the Russian Federation:

1. Guarantee the right for education in Romanian language based on Latin script, according to the curricula of the Ministry of Education of Republic of Moldova, for all residents of the transnistrian region;
2. Non-admission of closing down the schools with Romanian as teaching language, from the east of the Republic of Moldova;           
3. Identification and sanctioning of all persons, who infringe or contribute to infringing the fundamental rights of teachers, pupils and their parents;
4. Limiting and/or refusing to accept any financial transactions from the banking institutions from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, including the transnistrian region, that are not accredited by the National Bank of Moldova;
5. Execution by the Russian Federation of the Decision of the European Court for Human Rights of 19 October 2012 in the case Catan and others v. Moldova and Russia;
6. According to the their citizenship, to impose interdiction of circulation in the European Community space or other states for the persons responsible for infringing human rights in the transnistrian region;
7. Impose other necessary sanctions, political and financial, on the de facto administration from Tiraspol and persons and institutions that are supporting them, to discourage the infringement by the above of rights to education.