Elena Covalenco

Affiliated media: Photojournalist

Incident date: September 21, 2023

Attack type:

• Unauthorised travel ban (inside country, region or town)

Who attacked: Other country authorities

Source: Safety of Journalists Platform

Location: Moldova, Transnistria

Additional information:

On 21 September 2023, the Moldovan photojournalist Elena Covalenco was banned from entering the separatist Transnistrian region of Moldova. Covalenco was informed of the decision during a routine control at the de facto border as she was travelling with two other journalists from Chișinău to report on a football match in Tiraspol. The photojournalist said she had received accreditation from the Sheriff Football Club in the Transnistrian region to cover the club's match with an Italian team. While her colleagues were allowed in, Covalenco was forced to sign a document stating she had been declared ‘undesirable’ and banned entry for three years. According to Covalenco, the ban was related to a reporting trip to the Transnistrian region in June earlier this year, during which she was accompanying a journalist for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).