Fifty thousand
\npeople took to the streets on Sunday night in Bucharest alone, and another
\n40,000 in cities across the country as well as in Paris and Brussels,
\nmaking this the largest-scale protests
\nin Romania since the early 1990s, right after the anti-communist revolution.
\nOnce again, they demanded that the government appointed by the Social Democrats
\nand the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania give up the bills on
\ncollective pardons and decriminalising a number of offences. One of the bills
\ngrants full pardon for all prison sentences of up to 5 years, while the
\ndetention period might be reduced by half for prisoners over 60 years of age.
\nMoreover, abuse of office may qualify as a criminal offence only if the damages
\nexceed the equivalent of 55,000 euros.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Social
\nDemocrat Justice Minister Florin Iordache claims that the changes are needed in
\norder to solve the issue of prison overcrowding and to bring the legislation in
\nline with certain Constitutional Court rulings. He has mentioned that Romania
\nhas already been sentenced by the European Court for Human Rights for reported
\ninhuman detention conditions. In a statement on Radio Romania, Iordache
\npromised that the pardons would not cover sentences for corruption offences or
\nfor violent crimes. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
But the
\narguments of the Justice Minister and of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu could
\nnot convince the protesters. Firm and determined, although decent and peaceful,
\nthe participants in the rallies, mostly young people, resumed the protests they
\nstarted a week ago, when some 30,000 people took to the streets of Bucharest.
\nTogether with the mass media, civil society, the right-wing Opposition and
\nPresident Klaus Iohannis himself, people criticise what they see as an attempt
\nto clean the criminal records of politicians in the ruling alliance who face
\ncorruption charges. Their outrage is fuelled by the fact that such amendments
\nto the criminal law were not included in the governing programme that won the
\nSocial Democratic Party the parliamentary elections of December 11.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The media
\nsupporting the Power in Bucharest first accused the protesters of attempting a
\ncoup, and then even ridiculed them, writing that Romanians took to the streets
\nto celebrate the Swiss Roger Federer’s win in the Melbourne tennis tournament.
\nAnalysts however note that the Government’s initiative is opposed by the
\nSuperior Council of Magistracy, the Public Ministry, the National
\nAnti-Corruption Directorate and the Directorate Investigating Organised Crime
\nand Terrorism. As one observer put it, all of a sudden, the Social Democratic
\nParty is deeply concerned with the fate of prison convicts, although it had
\nstated that it wanted to rule in the name of people who are not prison
\nconvicts. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bucharest and other big Romanian cities once again saw large-scale protests against the Government’s plan to grant collective pardons and amend the criminal codes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":71878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[31491,31580,31533],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-71877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-collective-pardon","tag-criminal-code","tag-street-protests"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n