Discrimination on various grounds was and still is a sensitive topic for different categories of people in our country. At the same time, the phenomenon of discrimination through the media gains more and more territory on the media arena. How can we promote the rights of disadvantaged people? How should we cover these issues in the media? Where should we address and how should we write complaints in case of discrimination? These and many other questions were discussed at a new discussion club that has taken place recently at the School of Advanced Journalism. SAJ students met with Ian Feldman, the chairman of the Council for Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Equality.

The discussion club meeting began with a series of questions prepared by SAJ students. Young people were interested in learning more information and finding out about concrete cases of discrimination in Moldovan kindergartens and schools, discrimination in advertising, discrimination on grounds of language, ethnicity, political affiliation, etc. Ian Feldman drew the students’ attention to the fact that we need to first of all see the difference between discrimination and unfairness.

When we speak about discrimination, we most often mean unfairness. The word “discrimination” thus becomes a synonym of the word “unfairness.” “It is absolutely wrong,” Ian Feldman said. To understand the difference between these two terms, he presented to students examples of complaints received by the Council for Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Equality.

“What is the most discriminated category of people?” asked student Irina Gusan, and according to Ian Feldman, the most discriminated are people with mobility impairments. They are followed by people discriminated on grounds of age, nationality, gender, opinion, and political affiliation.

When asked whether the situation in Moldova in terms of tolerance and non-discrimination has improved, Ian Feldman said that the situation keeps worsening and that more and more groups of people become victims of discrimination. “People continue hating the LGBT community and neglecting those with mobility impairments. We hate each other for different reasons,” he concluded.

The most interesting topic discussed at the discussion club was the role of the media in covering discrimination issues. “I see several problems in the way the media approach certain topics,” Ian Feldman underlined. He reiterated that the Council currently works on toughening penalties for promotion of instigation to hatred through the media. “The media don’t think about the social impact of the word, and it is quite dangerous for the entire society,” Ian Feldman said.

At the end of the discussion, the chairman of the Council for Preventing and Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Equality urged students to actively engage in social life, write more articles and stories about discriminated and disfavored persons while strictly abiding by ethics and the Journalist’s Deontology Code.

The event has been organized as part of the “Combating Discrimination by Promoting Good Practices, Involving Citizens and Raising Media Accountability” project, implemented with the help of “Supporting National Human Rights Institutions according to recommendations of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Universal Periodic Review (UPR)” project funded by the Ministry of External Affairs of Norway, co-funded and implemented by UNDP Moldova and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in cooperation with the Office of People’s Advocate (Ombudsman) and the Council for Equality.