A Moldovan journalist detained on January 24 while covering a march in the capital of Moldova's Moscow-backed Transdniester region to protest trade duties announced by the Moldovan government has been released along with her cameraman.
Viorica Tataru, who works for local TV8 station, and her colleague Andrei Captarenco, were released after being held for two hours.
The protest in Tiraspol, which drew representatives of trade unions and organizations close to the Moscow-backed authorities in Transdniester, was organized by the breakaway region against new import and export duties announced on January 17 by Moldovan Reintegration Minister Oleg Serebrian.
The trade duties were introduced as part of Chisinau's move to align itself with European Union legislation as it prepares for accession talks with the 27-member bloc.
Local media reported that the protest lasted about one hour. The regional authorities claimed 50,000 people took part, but photos of the protest indicated that the number was far lower.
The protest organized by the administration in Tiraspol on January 24 against customs duties during which Tataru and a cameraman were detained.
Tataru had told her employer by phone that she was detained while asking people who attended the march what they wanted. She said she was being taken to the security service headquarters in Tiraspol by two men who introduced themselves as "collaborators."
The initial report about her detention did not mention that Captarenco also was detained.
She told her station that she would be interrogated about her presence at the protest and that she was considered to be "foreign media" from across the border.
"I just told them it was they who announced 'a massive protest' and we wanted to see if it was true, to talk to the people about what they want," she said.
Following the report of Tataru's detainment, local human rights watchdog Promo-LEX called on Moldova's government to immediately intervene to secure the journalist's release.
"It's paramount that authorities take decisive measures to protect press freedom and rights in the region," Promo-LEX said in a statement. It also condemned the "abusive and illegal practices by the Tiraspol separatist forces in relation to journalists."
The Prosecutor-General's Office has opened a criminal case on the detention of the journalists.
Russian-speaking Transdniester, a sliver of land between the left bank of the Dniester and Ukraine, declared independence from then-Soviet Moldova in 1990 over perceived fears that Chisinau would seek reunification with its kin in Romania.
Chisinau and Tiraspol fought a short but bloody war in the spring of 1992 after Moldova itself declared independence in the waning days of the USSR. More than 1,000 people were killed during the conflict that was quelled by the Russian forces stationed in Transdniester since Soviet times, who intervened on the side of Russian-speaking separatists.
Although Moscow never officially recognized Transdniester's independence, it still stations more than 1,000 troops in the region as "peacekeepers" and guardians of a huge Soviet-era arms and ammunition depot in the village of Cobasna.
Years of half-hearted negotiations brokered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to resolve the frozen conflict have yielded no result amid Moscow's continuous backing of the separatists.
However, after pro-Western President Maia Sandu came to power in 2020 and put Moldova firmly on the European path while strongly condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Chisinau secured an invitation to open membership negotiations with the EU, Transdniester's unresolved status has come under the spotlight again.
As aid from Moscow has been slowly drying up after decades amid the war in Ukraine, separatist leaders are under increasing economic pressure as Chisinau advances on the path to EU integration and is beginning to adopt the bloc's rules.