Radio România Internațional

Tag: European Court of Human Rights

May 5, 2020 UPDATE

MEETING — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis discussed on Tuesday with representatives of the business sector about measures to relaunch the economy which has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. After the meeting, Iohannis has said a massive increse in public invesment in all types of infrastructure is considered, with a focus on Romanian products. The Romanian Government has negotiated with the European Commission the redirecting of all non-repayable EU funds towards programmes for companies and large infrastructure projects. Iohannis has also said that a gradual reopening of the economic sectors will take place, the top priority being the protection of Romanians’ health.

RULING – The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Romania violated the right to a fair trial and the right to free speech of the former head of the countrys Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi, who is now the European Union’s first chief prosecutor. According to the Court, “there had been no way” for Laura Codruta Kovesi, who was fired in July 2018, to make a court claim against her removal from office. Also, according to the Court, freedom of expression was violated because of Kovesi’s dismissal for criticizing the governments anti-corruption legislation. Kovesi said the ECHR ruling would help strengthen judicial independence across the continent and defend magistrates from discretionary political interference. Kovesi’s dismissal was initiated by the then Social Democratic Minister Tudorel Toader. President Klaus Iohannis had to fire Kovesi following the ruling of Romanias Constitutional Court. The Head of state said on Tuesday, after the court ruling, that the credibility of the Romanian Constitutional Court, already affected by some controversial decisions over the past few years, is now even more seriously shaken. Iohannis also said that the rulingshows that Romanian Constitutional Court needs to be reformed at the constitutional level. In his turn, the current Justice Minister said he would propose Government to dismiss former minister Tudorel Toader from the position of member of the Venice Commission.

CORONAVIRUS ROMANIA – Barber shops, dental clinics and museums across Romania will reopen on May 15, after being shut down due to the coroanvirus pandemic. People will also be able to move around the city without a signed declaration. President Klaus Iohannis on Monday spoke about these measures, saying the state of emergency would be replaced with a state of alert, allowing the authorities to keep the situation in check. Meanwhile the COVID-19 death toll in Romania has reached 841 people, while the number of confirmed cases now stands at 13,800. 5,500 people have recovered. Health Minister Nelu Tataru says the pandemic could reach its peak at the end of the week. According to the Governments Group for Strategic Communication, some 2,400 Romanians living abroad have tested positive for coronavirus and 96 of them have died.

PANDEMIC – Italy, the first country in the world to impose total quarantine for the entire population due to the coronavirus pandemic, has started easing restrictions. For the second day in a row, the number of deaths was below 200, while the total number of confirmed cases stands at some 100,000. On Tuesday, 4.5 million Italians returned to work. Until May 17, Italians can move around the city only for work, health problems, to shop or to visit their relatives, while observing social distancing measures. The British Government is also expected to announce a gradual lifting of restrictions this week. In France, the Governments plans for a gradual return to normal life starting May 11 have been met with political criticism. The right-wing Senate has voted against the Governments relaxation plan, although the vote is purely consultative, bearing no effect on the implementation of the strategy already approved last week in the National Assembly. Over 250,000 people have died worldwide since the beginning of the outbreak in December last year in China.

(Translated by Elena Enache)

5 May 2020
January 26, 2018

N. DJUVARA — Romania cultural, academic and political personalities are mourning the death of historian, diplomat and novelist Neagu Djuvara, who died on Thursday in Bucharest, aged 101. The Romanian Foreign Ministry has said in a release that Neagu Djuvara will continue to be a symbol of the Romanian elite and an example for future generations. In 2016, the year he turned 100, Neagu Djuvara received “Romania’s Star” National Order in rank of Knight, the highest distinction offered by the Romanian state. Neagu Djuvara was born in 1916 in Bucharest in an aristocratic family. After studying at the Sorbonne, where he got a degree in History and another one in Law, he fought in the military campaigns in Bessarabia and Transdniester. He lived for 45 years in exile before coming back to Romania, where he became a well-known figure due to his erudition, wit and style. “I came back to the country to offer, not to receive. Destiny wanted me to do at 70 what I wanted to achieve at 30: to be an academic, to publish books in Romania,” Djuvara said in an interview.

EC — The European Commission monitors closely the situation in Romania, where citizens are protesting against the recent reform of the judiciary and against corruption, European Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova said on Friday in Sofia, ahead of an informal meeting of the EU justice ministers. Jurova said the EC wants reforms that should render the justice system more independent, highly functional and trustworthier. The evolutions in Romania are raising doubts over things going in the right direction, Vera Jurova said.

AGRICULTURE — Romania does not support the idea of a ceiling being set for payments under the future Common Agricultural Policy, as this measure is likely to endanger the source of food safety and the large farms, which are essential to Romanian agriculture, Romanian Agriculture Minister Petre Daea said at a meeting with the French Ambassador to Bucharest, Michele Ramis. In his turn, the French official said that Paris is close to the objectives presented by Romania in the agricultural sector, and pointed out that the next Common Agricultural Policy would have to deal with challenges such as food safety and climate change.

GOVERNMENT— The representatives of the ruling coalition in Romania made up of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats are today announcing the final government membership. The structure of the government remains unchanged, with 28 members of whom 3 deputy prime ministers, one of them without portfolio. Some of the Social Democrat ministers will carry on their terms in office during the future government. On Monday senators and deputies are going to give their confidence vote for the final membership of the Dăncilă cabinet and for the governing program. The Liberal opposition is holding talks with the other political parties to block the investiture of the new cabinet, the third one of the ruling coalition.

ECHU – At the annual press conference of the European Court of Human Rights on January 25, 2018 in Strasbourg, President Guido Raimondi took stock of the year 2017. Lat year saw unusual fluctuation in the case-load as a result of a high volume of incoming cases in the first part of the year and a large number of cases disposed of over the last six months. Romania is the country with the biggest number of applications, having exceeded Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. Most of the 9,900 cases, are against the conditions of detention in Romania. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against the Romanian state in 20 such cases. Also last year Romania was warned that it risks being fined unless it improves conditions in penitentiaries.

TENNIS – World’s no. 1 tennis player Simona Halep who on Thursday qualified for the finals of the Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam tournament, after defeating the German Angelique Kerber in a dramatic match that lasted 140 minutes, will be up against the world’s number two Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, in the competition’s final. The Romanian staved off three-consecutive match points from 0-40 down deep in the third set of her record-setting third-round epic against Lauren Davis, before fighting off two more match points in Thursdays engrossing semi-final win over Angelique Kerber. Halep has so far won 16 trophies and has been world No.1 for 16 weeks and will now try to win a grand slam crown. (Translated by Elena Enache)

26 January 2018
The court case into the miner riots of 1990

14 persons have been indicted in connection to the miner riots of 13-15 June 1990, six months after the fall of communism. Some high-profile names that dominated the Romanian political scene at the time are about to appear before the High Court of Cassation and Justice: the former leftist president Ion Iliescu, the former prime minister Petre Roman, the former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu, the former director of the Romanian Intelligence Service Virgil Magureanu and Miron Cozma, the former trade union leader of the miners in the Jiu Valley coal mines, in the centre-west.

The miner riots occurred less than a month after elections that had validated Ion Iliescu’s regime. Not everyone was convinced, however, that the latter was committed to democracy, the rule of law and a market economy, and many continued to voice their opposition in the street. Ion Iliescu said the right wing was trying to stage of coup and called on the population to defend the democratic institutions. Thousands of miners then came to Bucharest and stormed the University building and the headquarters of the oppositions parties and of some independent newspapers. Army prosecutor Marian Lazar explains:

“These incidents occurred as a result of the diversion and manipulation of public opinion by the state authorities represented by the defendants, who presented the situation in a distorted manner and spread the idea that they were the product of a so-called far-right, legionnaire-type, rebellion. The protesters expressing their own political opinions were presented as criminals, extremists and reactionaries and described by the president elect of Romania as ‘hooligans’. The persons forcefully detained in the University Square and others believed to be connected to the protests were taken to police barracks, subject to unlawful arrests and held in unsuitable conditions. They were kept in detention without being formally charged until 21st of June 1990 at the latest.”

Four people died from gunshots, almost 1,400 suffered physical and psychological abuse and 1,250 were detained for political reasons, according to prosecutors. Inquiries into this case were resumed at the beginning of 2015 following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that obliged the Romanian authorities to identify the people responsible. The initial case had been dragged on for almost 20 years before being closed in 2009 without anyone being found guilty. The people now sitting in the defendants’ box, in particular Ion Iliescu, repeatedly said they are not responsible for the events of June 1990. (Translated by C. Mateescu)

14 June 2017
The Week in Review, April 24th – 30th

The vaccine crisis in Romania, about to be solved

Romania will notify the European Commission about its plans to block the export of vaccines, against the backdrop of a measles epidemic, currently affecting 5,000 people, Health Minister Florian Bodog announced on Thursday. He said the authorities are planning to block exports for other medicines as well, including those stipulated in the national healthcare programs, and in the oncology and leukaemia treatment programs. Minister Bodog says he wants Romanian patients to receive the same treatment as those in other countries where these drugs are considerably more expensive. Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu expressed his support for the Health Minister in his efforts to deal with the vaccine shortages. He went on to say that Romania will have a multi-annual procurement plan as well as an integrated management institution so that vaccination becomes a national priority.

ECHR sanctions Romania for improper detention conditions

According to the European Court of Human Rights, detention conditions in Romania breach the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, reflecting a structural instability that needs to be addressed by Bucharest authorities by means of a set of overall measures. Under a pilot ruling issued on Tuesday, the Court gave Romania a fine of 17,850 Euro and six months to find solutions to prison overcrowding. According to official data, there is currently a shortage of 11,000 seats in Romanias 44 prisons. In 8 of them, the normal occupation capacity has been exceeded by 200%. The solutions envisaged by the authorities include the building of new prisons or expanding already existing detention facilities, pardoning inmates with shorter sentences or reducing sentences under special conditions or placing some inmates on house arrest. Collective pardon or house arrest will only solve prison overcrowding in the short run, the National Penitentiary Administration director Marius Vulpe claims, arguing instead in favour of building new prisons. Experts say that irrespective of their costs, these measures will turn out to be profitable investment. In recent years, the Romanian state has paid 2 million euros worth of damages to detainees who won cases they referred to the ECHR, deploring improper detention conditions.

Court upholds two-year suspended sentence for Social Democratic leader Liviu Dragnea

The leader of the Social Democratic Party and speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea said on Thursday he would appeal the latest ruling of the High Court of Cassation and Justice at the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Romanias supreme court on Monday rejected his appeal to annul a two-year suspended sentence for electoral fraud. The sentence is now final. Dragneas lawyers argued that the sentence should be annulled because two judges retired before the courts motivation was drafted and that other persons signed the motivation instead. They also claimed the 30-day legal deadline for drafting the motivation was exceeded. Liviu Dragnea received a two-year suspended sentence in 2016 for rigging a 2012 referendum on the impeachment of the then president Traian Basescu. Dragnea was accused of creating a system, before and during the ballot, meant to overturn the outcome of the vote and make sure the required turnout was achieved. This did not happen, however, and the referendum was not valid, so Traian Basescu remained in office.

Romania and 3 other EU countries report budget deficit of or above 3% of the GDP in 2016

Romanias budget deficit in 2016 was 3% of the GDP, according to the Statistical Office of the European Union, Eurostat. Bucharest had pledged not to go over this ceiling, which may trigger an excessive deficit procedure from the European Commission. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was around 170 billion euros, and the deficit exceeded 5 billion euros. Three other EU member states saw a budget deficit equal to or higher than 3% of their GDP, namely the UK, France and Spain. On the other hand, the Eurostat announced, at the end of last year, that Romania was among the EU countries with the lowest government debt to GDP ratios, 37.6%, much under the 60% ceiling stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty as one of the criteria for joining the Eurozone. In its winter economic forecast, the European Commission warned that Romania might see in 2017 the most substantial deepening of the budget deficit in the Union, in spite of having had the highest economic growth rate last year. The Commission estimates that Romanias budget deficit might reach 3.6% of the GDP this year, exceeding the Governments target of 2.98%. The Commission also expects Romania to have a 4.4% economic growth rate, below the estimated 5.2% on which the Government has based its state budget allocations this year.

Romania subscribes to the EU stand on Brexit negotiations

The Romanian Minister Delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall took part on Thursday in Luxembourg in the meeting of the General Affairs Council, the first meeting of 27 member states, without the UK. According to Birchall, the priority in the Brexit negotiations will be to ensure a balanced agreement, reflecting objectively and fairly all the 4 freedoms of the single market, including the free movement of people. The meeting in Luxembourg was held following the UK official notification of its intention to terminate its EU membership.

29 April 2017
June 14, 2016

TALKS Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has today held talks with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella in Bucharest. High on the agenda were ways of stepping up the bilateral strategic partnership between the two countries, the challenges currently facing the European Union and the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw. President Iohannis has referred to the over 1,200,000 Romanians living in Italy and underlined the need for stepping up joint efforts to increase their involvement in Italy’s political and social life. In turn president Mattarella said the Romanian community in Italy is large, appreciated and has become increasingly integrated adding that the level of cooperation between Italy and Romania is truly exemplary.

VISIT Romanian Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos will be in Canada until Thursday, which is the first visit paid by a high-ranking Romanian official in the past 15 years. The Romanian Prime Minister will be holding talks with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other authorities, about a visa waiver for the Romanian citizens. Romania and Bulgaria are the only EU countries, whose citizens still need visas to enter Canada. Last week the two EU members signed a joint letter calling on Canada to lift visas for their citizens. On the other hand, Canada has staunchly supported Romania’s integration into NATO, being the first country to have ratified the accession protocols of the candidate countries that were accepted at the NATO summit in Prague on March 28th 2003.

FOOTBALL Romania’s national football side is bracing up for the game against Switzerland due on Wednesday as part of the European Championships underway in France. Last week, in the tournament’s opening match Romania lost to France two-one, while Switzerland clinched a one-nil win against Albania also in Group A. Today will see the first matches in Group F: Austria is playing Hungary while Portugal will be taking on Iceland. On Monday in Group E, Italy outperformed Belgium two-nil, while Sweden held Ireland to a one-all draw. Also on Monday in Group D, Spain obtained a one-nil win against the Czech Republic.

MEETING On Tuesday and Wednesday Romania’s Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc will be joining his NATO counterparts for a meeting in Brussels. High on the agenda are the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw, the allied presence in the Eastern flank and the situation in Afghanistan. On the event’s sidelines, Minister Motoc will be meeting his counterparts from Italy, Britain, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine and Bulgaria. Before the meeting, the US permanent representative to NATO, Douglas Lute, has said that the North-Atlantic Alliance is with Romania and appreciates the fact that Romania is hosting the anti-missile shield in Deveselu. The US official has also said that if there are actions from any state that threaten not only Deveselu or any other part of Romanian sovereignty then the Alliance will take defending measures.

COMMEMORATION Bucharest is commemorating 26 years since the 1990 miners’ raid on Bucharest, which stifled a large-scale protest rally against the leftist government that came to power after the fall of the communist dictatorship in 1989. Against the background of a series of violent events the army had already managed to contain, the then president of Romania, Ion Iliescu invoked a coup attempt by the far right political groups and called on the population to defend democratic institutions. The miners who arrived in Bucharest killed 6 people, wounded hundreds and caused over 1,000 abusive arrests. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Romania asking it to continue investigation in the file of the miners’ raid in June 1990.

14 June 2016
June 13, 2016 UPDATE

INQUIRY Romanias Higher Cassation and Justice Court on Monday confirmed the General Prosecutors ruling to commence penal prosecution in the Romanian Revolution File, which investigates the events that led to the collapse of the communist regime in December 1989. In April, Bogdan Licu, then interim prosecutor general, announced the reopening of an investigation into the case because the 2015 ruling by the military prosecutors to close the case was ungrounded and illegal, being based on incomplete investigation with essential documents ignored. We recall that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Romania, which has been ordered to pay compensations to the relatives of those who were shot dead during the anti-communist uprising of 1989. According to the court, the importance of this case for the Romanian society should have motivated the authorities to solve the case urgently. According to official statistics, 1,100 people were killed and about 3,000 wounded in the anti-communist uprising of 1989.

VISIT As of Monday Italian president Sergio Mattarella is paying a two-day formal visit to Bucharest at the invitation of his Romanian counterpart Klaus Iohannis. High on the talks agenda are ways of developing bilateral relations in the political, economic and cultural fields and also other issues, such as migration and control at the EUs exterior borders. On Tuesday in Bucharest Mattarella is expected to attend an economic forum entitled “Italian Investment in Romania – a European Route into the Global Economy. We recall that Italy is Romanias second biggest economic partner with trade exchanges of 13 billion euros. In another development president Iohannis on Monday received in Bucharest the president of Parliament in the Republic of Moldova (an ex-soviet Romanian-speaking country) Adrian Candu. On this occasion president Iohannis reiterated Bucharests staunch support for the Republic of Moldovas European progress.

SUPPORT The North Atlantic Alliance is together with Romania and appreciates the fact that the country is hosting the anti-missile shield in Deveselu, Douglas Lute, the US Permanent Representative to NATO said on Monday. Lute added that if any other country threatened the base in Deveselu or the sovereignty of Romania, NATO would certainly resort to defence measures. The US official went on to say that there are no explicit threats at Romanias security at present. Lutes statement came after Russian leader Vladimir Putin said late last month that Romania could find itself in the range of the Russian missiles, as the country hosts elements of the US anti-missile shield. The facilities in Deveselu, southern Romania, which include a state-of-the-art radar, ballistic interceptors and high-tech communication equipment were inaugurated on May 12th.

TALKS Romanias Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu said in Vienna on Monday that Bucharest could contribute to a strengthened Schengen zone. During the discussions he had with his Austrian counterpart, Sebastian Kurz, other issues were tackled, such as bilateral relations, the situation of the Romanian community in Austria as well as topical issues on the European agenda, like the latest developments in the EUs eastern vicinity and the refugee crisis. The meeting between the two officials was occasioned by the ministerial summit marking 20 years since the Treaty on the Comprehensive Banning of Nuclear Tests. Under the treaty signatories are banned from conducting any nuclear tests and shall take all the measures needed to prevent and ban such activities on their territories. Romania signed the treaty in 1996 and ratified it in 1999.

13 June 2016
April 12, 2016

UKRAINE – The Parliament of Ukraine, a country neighbouring Romania, will today approve the resignation of PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and find him a replacement. Yatsenyuk announced his resignation on Sunday, blaming politicians’ failure to enact real changes. His government has been constantly accused, over the past few months, of inaction and corruption. President Petro Poroshenko could now install Volodymyr Groysman, a member of his own party, as the next prime minister. However, the Unian news agency quoted parliament sources as saying that Groysman is said to have turned down the President’s proposal over divergences regarding the Cabinet’s membership.

LEGISLATION – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has initiated consultations with parliamentary parties on the national security legislation. Iohannis seeks consensum ahead of the public debate on this issue. The Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) are attending today’s meeting with the head of state. The PSD leader, Liviu Dragnea, has said that his party supports the Romanian state’s investigative capacity but that citizens’ fundamental rights should not be affected. In his turn, the co-president of the National Liberal Party, Alina Gorghiu, believes that improving the national security legislation has become the goal of the entire political class, against the background of the terrorist threat. In his turn, the UDMR leader, Kelemen Hunor, has said he is in favor of a balance to be striken between the need for security and the observance of people’s rights and liberties. The need for the revision of the security legislation has been signalled recently by President Iohannis, who has said that the current legislation no longer reflects the present security context.

ECHR – Romania was sentenced again in the European Court of Human Rights for failing to solve the anti-communist Revolution case. This time, Romania must pay 675 thousand euros to 45 people. Each plaintiff will get 15 thousand euros in damages. In February, the European Court of Human Rights had ruled that the Romanian state must pay 15 thousand euros to each of the 17 plaintiffs. The latter accused the authorities of failure to carry out an efficient investigation into the death of their loved ones and into the ill treatments that they, or people close to them, were subjected to during the December 1989 protests. The Revolution Case was reopened last week in Romania. According to official statistics, over 1,100 people lost their lives and around 3 thousand were injured during the December 1989 Revolution.

PROTESTS— The rally of miners and power industry workers with the Oltenia Energy Compound in southwestern Romania in protest at the lay-off of hundreds of employees continues. Around 60 of them will travel over 300 km to Bucharest, to protest in front of the Government headquarters. Among other things, the unionists demand that a plan be urgently put in place to enhance the efficiency of production units and that salary schemes should be based on performance criteria. Unionists hope that what they call “the rally of despair” will also trigger a revision of the regulations on the domestic energy market.

ELECTIONS – The leadership of the National Liberal Party (PNL), the most important right-of centre party in Romania, is today nominating a new candidate for Bucharest’s mayoralty. The National Liberal Party vice-president and candidate in the race for Bucharest mayor, Ludovic Orban, withdrew his candidacy and renounced his party positions, after being subjected to legal restrictions pending trial in a new corruption case. Anti-corruption prosecutors claim that Orban last month demanded 50,000 euros from a businessman linked with decision-makers in two television stations in exchange for the media advertising of his campaign. Local elections will be held in Romania on June 5th.

DOPING – Romanian athlete Mirela Lavric, aged 25, one of the best sprinters in Romania, tested positive for Meldonium during the World Indoor Championships in Portland, this March, when she won the bronze medal in the 4 x 400m relay race, ProSport online magazine reports. Mirela Lavric is thus the first Romanian athlete tested positive for the same substance as the famous tennis player Maria Sharapova.

12 April 2016
Miners’ Raid Investigated after 25 Years

This week, further hearings have been held at the Bucharest General Prosecutor’s Office on the file concerning the June 1990 miners’ raid,
which put an end to a large-scale protest against the left-wing power that took
hold of Romania after the fall of the Communist regime in December 1989. On
Wednesday, prosecutors indicted the former head of state, Ion Iliescu, with
crimes against humanity, alongside another two of his then collaborators: the
Director of the Romanian Intelligence Office, Virgil Magureanu, and the Defense
Minister Victor Stanculescu. Also part of this investigation are other
resounding names such as the former Prime Minister Petre Roman and his deputy
Gelu Voican Voiculescu.

On Thursday, the prosecutors also indicted the former
leader of the miners in Jiu Valley, Miron Cozma, who said he was innocent and
stressed that it was not him who had brought the miners to Bucharest in June
1990, but the then authorities. He himself was brought to Bucharest by force,
Cozma claimed. Cozma was accused alongside the former presidential adviser Emil
Cico Dumitrescu and the former vice-chairman of the National Union Provisionary Council, Cazimir Ionescu. We recall that in June 1990, against the background
of violent incidents in the capital, which the army had already managed to
stifle, the former head of state Ion Iliescu invoked an attempted far-right coup, and
called on the population to defend the democratic institutions of the country. The raid of the
miners from Jiu Valley on Bucharest, where they attacked the University, the
headquarters of the opposition parties and the offices of some independent newspapers,
ended in four officially registered dead and hundreds of wounded, as well as
over one thousand people arrested abusively.

The miners’ raid file
came back on prosecutors’ table in February 2015, a few months after the
European Court of Human Rights condemned the Bucharest authorities for the way
in which they had managed the situation back in June 1990. On September 17th,
2014, the Court obliged Romania to restart the investigation and to pay 60
thousand Euro in damages to the three plaintiffs who could not find justice in
the Romanian courts. In Bucharest, the miners’ raid had been investigated into
for eight years, but the case was eventually closed, and nobody was prosecuted.

In Strasbourg, however, the Human Rights Court’s judges based their decision
on evidence of violation of several articles of the European Convention on
Human Rights, such as the one regarding torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. After 25 years, the miners’ raid file is now reopening old
wounds and is stirring fierce debates. Prosecutors hope to bring justice in this case, the
serious event to have ever occurred in Romania after the anti-communist revolution of
December 1989.

23 October 2015
Miners’ raids file makes headlines again

On May 20, 1990, five months after the fall of Nicolae Ceusescu’s repressive regime, his former minister in the 1970s, Ion Iliescu, generally seen as a leader of the 1989 Revolution, won the first free presidential elections in Romania with 85% of the votes. His party, a heterogeneous combination of genuine revolutionaries and second-hand communists also won two thirds of the seats in Parliament. In Bucharest, University Square that had been occupied, ever since April, by students and proclaimed ‘free of neo-communism’, was empty, as protesters had to comply with the result of the elections.

Only several tens of hunger strikers that seemed unable to cope with the disastrous outcome of the elections were still in the square that had previously hosted tens of thousands of exuberant and peaceful people. On the night of June 13, the riot police cracked down on protesters with such disproportionate force that it evoked the violent repression during the Revolution. It is still unclear if those who reacted the next day by engaging in street fighting against the riot police and storming the offices of the Interior Ministry and the National Television had any real connection with the Square or not.

Ion Iliescu called them ‘legionnaires’, an allusion to the interwar far right movement, and, in spite of the fact that the army had already reinstated order, he called on people to come and rescue democracy, which he said was endangered. The miners in the Jiu Valley, in South-Western Romania, answered the president’s call. For only two days, on June 14 and 15, they took control of the capital city and acted as supreme authority. Time enough for them to kill at least four people, injure several hundreds and throw over one thousand people behind bars. The miners devastated the Bucharest University building, the head offices of several parties and of several independent newspapers.

To Laura Codruta Kovesi, the former general prosecutor and current head of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, the inquiry into the miners’ raid was one of the biggest failures in the history of the Public Ministry. Pundits say that the case would have probably been closed for good if it wasn’t for the European Court of Human Rights that ordered Romania to continue investigations in the case. Aged 85, Ion Iliescu is currently the honorary president of the Social Democratic Party, the main party in the government coalition.

A former defense minister, general Victor Atanasie Stanculescu has already served time in prison for his involvement in the violent repression of protesters during the 1989 Revolution. In his turn, the ex-Intelligence Service chief, Virgil Magureanu, also gave testimony before prosecutors about his own role in the incident. All three of them are now answering for their involvement in this incident that marred the countrys transition from communism to democracy.

22 October 2015