Journalists Banned From Entering Moldova May File Complaint to ECHR

Dmitry Ermolaev, a journalist who had recently been denied entry to Moldova, said on Monday that he and his Latvian counterpart Andrey Tatarchuk are reviewing the case with lawyers and considering the possibility of referring this matter to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Friday, the press service for the Moldovan border police told Sputnik that the editor-in-chief of the Russian weekly newspaper Rossiyskie Vesti, Ermolaev and Latvian journalist Tatarchuk had been banned from entering the country after failing to outline the goal of visiting Moldova.

"We are currently considering and consulting with lawyers on the prospects of examining this case in the ECHR. Because, first of all, it was the formal expulsion, the deportation without legal registration. In this procedure… many of our rights have been violated," Ermolaev told a press conference.

The journalist stressed that the plan to take legal action was aimed at preventing similar situations from happening again in the future.

Moldovan President Igor Dodon told Sputnik Friday that the entry ban was an "absolute provocation." The Russian Journalists' Union expressed outrage over the incident and called for the perpetrators of the "illegal action" to apologize to Ermolaev.