Protests from local residents, environmentalists, and Jewish activists have halted a construction project on the site of a former Jewish cemetery in Kishinev, Moldova, according to a January 30, 2007 report in the Moldova supplement to the national Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to Svetlana Kvetkina, a resident of a nearby apartment building who helped to lead the protest against the construction, last October bulldozers arrived at the Alunelul park, located on the grounds of the former cemetery.

"They started to dig up bones, which were then hurled all over the park, children were playing with skulls," she told the newspaper. "We got angry and they stopped. But a few days ago six bulldozers started digging there again... They told us that there will be a rec center for children here. But in reality, there will be a restaurant here within the rec center. Do children really need a three story building? If they build a cafe or restaurant here they will need gas and water and they will dig up more ground and put in pipes, the park will die."

A local official from the mayor's office told the protesters that the construction project will be cancelled and the builders offered a new spot in the city to build the rec center.

Although not mentioned in the article, several Jewish cemeteries were destroyed on the territory of the former Soviet Union, either by the Soviet regime or the Nazis. Disputes over the use of this land between developers and Jewish activists who want to preserve the peace of those buried there are common

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