[1] State media coverage of the street protests in 2002 regarding the Communists’ attempt to reinstate obligatory study of the Russian language and to defend the cultural identity that the majority of Moldovans share with neighboring Romania was censored.
In a case widely criticized by human rights defenders, opposition politician Valeriu Pasat was sentenced to a ten-year prison term.
The United States and human rights defenders from the European Union consider him a political prisoner, and an official statement from Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the judgment "striking in its cruelty".
[citation needed] According to Amnesty International's 2007 annual report, the state of human rights in Moldova was poor.
In 2009, when Moldova experienced its most serious civil unrest in a decade, several civilians like Valeriu Boboc were killed by police and many more injured.
But "Transnistrian authorities continued to harass independent media and opposition lawmakers; restrict freedom of association, movement, and religion; and discriminate against Romanian speakers.
Law enforcement bodies, the police in particular, show a discriminatory attitude, hostility, abusive behavior, and physical and psychological violence towards them.