The Center for Investigative Journalism is celebrating its 20th anniversary today. For two decades, our team has been producing quality investigative journalism.

The team has persevered despite numerous pressures, challenges, lawsuits, and various attacks because when you touch someone's interests in our small Moldova, there are more defenders of the corrupt than of journalists who go after them. We have faced any pressure, we have resisted, we have had the courage to move forward, to continue exposing the corrupt, because we have always had courageous, daring, persevering, and honest people in our team. Politicians come and go, but we remain in our place and continue to do our work! Many outstanding journalists have grown and developed in our team, some of them now being part of the best teams.

None of the journalists who have been part of our team has aligned themselves with the likes of Shor, Plahotniuc, or Dodon. They have built a strong backbone that cannot be bent by anyone. The Center has always provided journalists with a reliable support system, even when resources were scarce. In over 20 lawsuits, those targeted in our investigations wanted to silence us, to put us out of commission, but they failed, even though they demanded millions from us, and it would have been enough for us to lose just one case to be unable to work anymore. We have not lost a single case in which we have been involved. The only case we lost in the country is related to access to information, which we initiated against important institutions in the state, and now it is pending before the ECHR. In 20 years, we have conducted hundreds of investigative reports, some of which have led to criminal cases, and the subjects of journalistic investigations have lost their positions or ended up in prison, including in other countries where justice has done what оur prosecutors turned a blind eye to... As a result of some journalistic investigations, changes were made to the legislation...

Our press clubs have hosted dozens of politicians, experts, and legal professionals, and many journalists have worked with us on investigations or participated in our activities.

Looking back now, I am proud of our achievements, the professionals who have grown alongside us, whom we have taught and from whom we have learned. This shows that independent and professional journalism can be done in Moldova, that you can investigate any subject and know that there is a platform to publish it. And the satisfaction of professionally done work is all that matters.

We are grateful to those who supported us when we embarked on this bold adventure, when times were tough, to those who stood by our side, to those who contributed bit by bit to the image of the Center for Investigative Journalism. These 20 years constitute an extraordinary story of courage, professionalism, teamwork, freedom of expression, and beautiful people. We will weave this beautiful story in the coming months.

We thank all those who have been and are part of the Center for  Investigative Journalism, those who have stood by us and supported us, the citizens who support us through donations or the 2% mechanism, those who report cases from which we start our press investigations and interesting materials. Many more years to the Center for  Investigative Journalism, with courageous journalists and exciting projects!