This document provides information on the worsening operational environment of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Moldova, where increasingly more independent CSOs become the target of numerous mudslinging and defamation actions.
The main purpose of the document is to draw attention to the danger of orchestrated attacks on CSOs, and to determine public authorities, private organizations, and individuals to stop supporting those attacks and let CSOs operate freely. This document also aims at enabling CSOs to design timely response to attacks against them.
The term “attacks” as used in this document refers particularly to media articles or public interventions that present the nonprofit sector as promoting the interests of foreign countries or serving the interests of political parties. Some of these attacks take the form of direct administrative crackdown
on CSOs by driving them out of policy-making process or by launching legislative initiatives aimed at deteriorating the CSOs’ working environment.