[citation needed] The protests and wave of violence is sometimes described as the "grape revolution" but the term was not used much by outsiders; in Moldova, it is sometimes referred as the Chisinău Uprising (Romanian: Revolta de la Chișinău).

The unrest began as a public protest after the announcement of preliminary election results on 6 April 2009, which showed the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova victorious, winning approximately 50% of the votes.

Final results, published on 8 April, showed that the PCRM garnered 49.48% of the vote, gaining 60 parliament seats – one less than the three-fifths required for the party to control the presidential election.

[18] The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) International Election Observing Mission declared the elections generally free and fair, although it also reported that the comparison of data on the voting age population provided by the Moldovan Ministry of the Interior with the number of registered voters provided by local executive authorities revealed a discrepancy of some 160,000.

[21][22][23] According to Vladimir Socor, a political analyst for the Jamestown Foundation, the elections were evaluated as positive on the whole, with some reservations not affecting the outcome or the overall initial assessment.

[24] Opposition parties pointed out that the lists of eligible voters included 300,000 more people compared to the previous elections, although the population of Moldova has been shrinking.

The demonstration, numbering over ten thousand, most of them students and young people, gathered in the city center on Ștefan cel Mare boulevard.

Moldovan national television had initially reported that a young woman died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to the fires within the parliament building set off by the rioters.

[42] On 7 April, Serafim Urechean, leader of the opposition Party Alliance Our Moldova, during a meeting with President Voronin said that the riots were orchestrated by security services.

[48] Amnesty International accused the Moldovan government of violating human rights through the actions of the police, that it detained indiscriminately hundreds of protesters, including minors, who were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.

[50] Stati was in Ukrainian custody along with another suspect, Aurel Marinescu, for their alleged "involvement in organizing an attempt to overthrow the Moldovan government.

[62] On 13 April, Chișinău mayor Dorin Chirtoacă made an appeal to international organizations regarding the arrests in Moldova, claiming that the protesters had been tortured, not given the right to talk to a lawyer and that NGOs were not allowed access to the detention centres.

He also claimed that the real number of arrestees was higher than the official figures, as the list compiled by the press of missing protesters reached 800 names.

[63] A United Nations report, based on a visit to one detention center, said that the hundreds of people arrested following the civil unrest were subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, being beaten with clubs, water bottles, fists and feet, were denied food and access to legal counsel, and brought before judges in batches of six and collectively charged.

[64] Edwin Berry, the UN human rights adviser for Moldova said that during the visit to the detention center almost everyone he talked to had visible marks that show that they have been beaten.

[70] The body of another protester, Ion Țâbuleac, with multiple wounds and fractures, was allegedly dumped from a car belonging to the Moldovan Ministry of Internal Affairs.

While attending the ceremony, the prime minister Vlad Filat said that the Ministry of the Interior has already started a domestic investigation into the police's actions on 7 April 2009, and especially during subsequent days and weeks.

The entire Moldovan nation witnessed the greatest humiliation of its own sovereignty and its own democracy when the state standards were ripped from the flagpoles of Parliament and the President's Office and replaced with the flags of Romania.

"[citation needed] In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, Voronin claimed the professors and teachers, especially in Chișinău, have a very destructive role as "continuators of Ion Antonescu".

[83] On 14 April, Serafim Urechean announced that the three main opposition parties would boycott the recount, citing fears that the government would use it to increase its majority to the 61 seats required to elect the next president.

[89] The Romanian ambassador in Moldova, Filip Teodorescu was declared persona non grata by the Moldovan government, being required to leave the country within 24 hours.

[89] The following day, the Romanian parliament nominated a senior diplomat, Mihnea Constantinescu, as the new ambassador to Moldova,[90] but two weeks later, the Moldovan government rejected him without any explanation, deepening the crisis.

[89] It also condemned as "arbitrary and discriminatory" the new measures brought against Romanian nationals in Moldova and has stated that the visa scheme was "reckless" and broke a Moldova-EU pact.

[citation needed] The original Moldovan Declaration of Independence approved and signed on 27 August 1991 was burned during the civil unrest, but an identical document was restored in 2010.