In the Eastern European Republic of Moldova, long considered one of the worst oppressors of press freedom, investigative reporters are exposing corruption, organized crime, poverty, social injustice and human rights violations.

IJNet recently spoke to Alina Radu, the Director of Ziarul de Gardă, an independent newspaper in Moldova, about progress in the country's investigative press, and challenges that remain. In 2009, Ziarul de Gardă won the Prize for the Best Human Rights Reporting from the UN in Moldova.

IJNet: How did you become an investigative journalist?

AR: I have been working as a journalist for about 20 years, and I do this job in a country known for being among the top most corrupted states. In particular, [Moldova] has deep problems in terms of human rights, women, child and human organ trafficking, illegal migration, torture and all related phenomena.

However, while it is easy to have so many topics [to report on], it is really hard to produce stories in a country without traditions of independent press and with little respect for journalists who dig deeply to reveal the truth.

I started from some investigative reports on TV. One of them was about Moldovan pilots who disappeared in Africa in 1998. I learned about government corruption in Moldova and some African countries, in the realms of money, guns and power. At the same time I found out families of disappeared pilots had so much to say and hoped to be heard.

Then I made the decision to work in this kind of journalism. An investigative journalism training in the U.S. in 2003 set me on a path to launch an investigative newspaper in Moldova together with a few colleagues.

IJNet: Have there been difficult and/or dangerous investigations in your newspaper?

AR: Only once did I stop working on a story. It was about a young Moldovan who had fallen victim to NATO soldiers in the Balkans. We had a discussion and set up an interview, but a few days later she was killed. Moreover, she was under the protection of local police at that moment.

Now, after [civil unrest] in Moldova in April 2009, we at Ziarul de Garda started a series of investigative stories on torture: policemen who tortured and killed people, judges who convicted innocent people, prosecutors who did not investigate crimes.

It is a really difficult part of our activities, because a huge number of people were arrested and tortured within just one day last year, April 7, about one thousand. Until now, nobody has been convicted, we see no convicted policemen, prosecutors or judges.

At the same time we hear the voices of hundreds of victims and their families who were tortured in police stations -- some of them were killed, some of them seriously wounded, there were young people who spent many weeks in the hospital, there were young girls naked and abused in police stations. All of them are still waiting for truth and justice, and the media has an important role in curing this system.

IJNet: Do you share the results of your investigations with officials in Moldova?

AR: Yes, we share and we ask for answers. It is easier with new authorities in Moldova, elected after July 2009. We informed the Minister of Justice about our series of articles about judges who prosecuted young people in police stations without lawyers or without asking defendants anything. Such "trials" lasted for five minutes. The Minister of Justice made a special request to the Superior Council of Magistrates to analyze the actions of those judges.

Another series of investigative stories was on the system of the Railway mafia. We shared our information with the Ministry of Transportations. Because of the story, many Railway officials were fired.

IJNet: What size are investigations? Are they done in Moldova only or are there any cross-border investigations?

AR: Cross-border stories are frequently about illegal migration, smuggling, and, of course, human trafficking. We did many stories about trafficking of organs, children, women, and about illegal migration, forced labor and Moldovans abroad.

My stories about kidney trafficking from Moldova to Turkey, Estonia, Georgia and Germany came to the attention of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. Many media outlets abroad call us for details or to use our stories. Our website, www.zdg.md, is visited monthly by readers from more than 60 countries, and we are trying to keep an English version of our Web site updated.

IJNet: Do you cooperate with other investigative journalism organizations?

AR: We follow trainings on investigative journalism abroad. We cooperate with Romanian media and with some journalists from Balkan countries. I personally did stories together with journalists from BBC, Danishdoc, DN and ZDF.

IJNet: Do you train investigative journalists? How do you find investigative journalists?

AR: I am a trainer at the Advanced School of Journalism, opened in Moldova by the Independent Journalism Center. In addition, I have participated as a trainer in many training events in Moldova for young journalists on investigative journalism, covering issues of corruption, transparency and trafficking.

At Ziarul de Garda we mentor young investigative journalists. We opened a Laboratory for Young Journalists and we teach them all necessary knowledge and skills: how to identify a topic, what are the steps in doing a story, how to cover it, etc. They do it step by step in our newsroom until the moment they publish it. So, in the end, young journalists have a story written together in a team. Once they've done this, most of them are coming back with the second and third story.

IJNet: Do average citizens help you?

AR: Yes, they help us a lot. Most topics are initiated by our readers who call and write to us, telling us about corruption or crime in their areas. The only problem we have now is that the community of people who trust us has grown really fast. As a result, we have too many signals, cases, complaints and addresses of possible investigative stories. Unfortunately, we cannot address all requests and cover all stories.

IJNet: For whom do you publish the website? Who is your audience?

AR: Our audience consists of people who care about what is happening in Moldova and think things could be improved. From comments and letters we receive, as well as from monitoring data, we see that our audience consists of readers from more than 60 countries. Most of them are Moldovans who are living abroad. This means that young, well educated people, with an access to the Internet are interested in Moldovan media and events in Moldova.

Readers of our print edition are mostly people in search of human rights. People who are in jails and police stations read our newspaper because it is about torture, judicial mistakes or corruption, penal cases and so on.

We are thankful to our readers, because they are very reactive to every story we publish. During the events in Moldova last April we updated news on the site every five minutes. There was a huge amount of important information about torture, disappeared people, harassed people and so on. We had many things to do and we did not have resources to translate the information into English. Our readers decided to help us and for a few weeks they translated news into English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and Chinese. They communicated with each other online and did a lot of work just to support the paper they love.

IJNet: Describe your journalism team.

AR: Young, dedicated, professional, energetic. Every year our reporters receive about 10 prizes from national and international bodies in Moldova for best reporting. In 2009 our team got the Prize for the Best Human Rights Reporting from the UN in Moldova. It was a confirmation for us that we do citizens rights journalism.

IJNet: Who is the example for you in the world of investigative journalism?

AR: I would start with the Watergate reporters [in the U.S.] and would continue with Dan Rather who dedicated more than half a century to controversial stories, and, of course, Anna Politkovskaya. Politkovskaya worked in the conditions of permanent danger, and she never gave up. Since her murder, we have an obligation to look for the truth and to speak out as powerfully as she did. Solidarity is vital for investigative reporters.

IJNet: Has the Internet changed the investigative reporting landscape in Moldova and how?

AR: To some degree yes, and at some degree no. On an international scale, it is easier to find necessary information. On the national level, in Moldova, the Communist Government ruled for eight years -- years of great advancement of the Internet. But most of the government’s spending of public money was not for public information. Even those documents that had to be made public, according to the law, were hidden.

For example, I can easily find information of top U.S. government officials' income online, but I cannot find the same information about Moldovan government officials.

IJNet: What are your goals for the future?

AR: My first goal is to inform people in Moldova better and help them know their rights and the institutions which protect their rights. I also dream about fair conditions for independent media in Moldova, where nobody would be threatened, beaten or punished for seeking the truth.

To get more information (in Romanian), go to http://www.zdg.md and http://word.world-citizenship.org/wp-archive/1491