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The National Audiovisual Council of Romania handed down, on Thursday, fines ranging from 40,000 lei to 15,000 lei to private television broadcaster Realitatea Plus, on the grounds that it violated the provisions of the audiovisual legislation by disseminating unproven information and statements, defamatory concerning president Klaus Iohannis and of National Liberal Party (PNL) senator Alina Gorghiu.
Convened in public session, the National Audiovisual Council analysed the monitoring reports prepared by the specialized directorate as a result of the referrals received and decided to impose a fine of 40,000 lei on private broadcaster Realitatea Plus for the October 10 and 17 editions of the show "Behind the scenes of the parallel state", in which accusations were brought against President Iohannis, some representatives of the local authorities, as well as the company Holzindustrie Schweighofer, without taking into account the provisions of the Audiovisual Law no. 504/2002, states CNA, in a press release sent to AGERPRES.
The proposal was formulated, by mutual agreement, by CNA members Valentin Jucan, who, initially, proposed an amount of 50,000 lei, and Mircea Toma, who had proposed a fine of 30,000 lei.
In Valentin Jucan's view, an accusation against the president of a country "affects the credibility of the state itself."
"The president of any country obviously has a special status. In Romania, due to the form of government, the president is the most voted politician in the country. The moment some accusations are brought against the president of the country and, yes, the president should not to be exempted from such a thing if, I emphasize, if these accusations are very, very, very well proven and not just opinions, the moment you are talking about a country's president, no matter who that is, you are actually talking about the entire state system, because he is at its top, you are talking about its representativeness. (...) Any accusation brought against the president has repercussions on the presidential institution and on the credibility of the state itself," said Valentin Jucan.
At Mircea Toma's proposal, CNA sanctioned Realitatea Plus with a fine of 15,000 lei, because in the show "The Laws of Power" from October 4, "tendentious" statements were made against PNL senator Alina Gorghiu, and the broadcaster did not taking into account the provisions of art. 47 para. (4) of the Audiovisual Law.
According to Mircea Toma, the statements against Alina Gorghiu are "defamatory, (...) gender being treated in a discriminatory manner, reduced to sexual qualities".
