Yesterday I was in Amsterdam to protest against the current government from Romania and many people asked where can they read about it. Unfortunately, there’s not much information in English about the situation back home and why Romanians have already 1.5 years since they are actively protesting against the government.
Everything started in January 2017, when, after 2 months of being elected, the government decided to change the justice laws in order to discriminate corruption. They made a law in which they were saying that if a state employee was gaining less than 50000€ by misconduct not to be punished by law. This is the context of having over 2000 criminal cases in investigation of corrupted politicians. Due to the protests which took place in Romania and in other countries, the law wasn’t approved and the minister of justice was fired. In a few months the prime minister was obliged, by his own party, to quit.
A new government was formed, but the program they announced during elections was not their first priority. The discussions were mainly how to modify the justice laws, how to save big politicians from their criminal investigations. The second prime minister also quit due to pressure from his party.
And now, in 2 years, we have the 3rd government formed from the main party PSD. The leader of PSD was recently convicted, in first instance, to 3.5 years of prison. He is still the 3rd man in power. He proposed as prime minister a former European parley, the first woman to be a prime minister in Romania. But she is just a face, just the doll, Dragnea is playing with. Each time she has a statement to do she is reading papers, she is not speaking Romanian correctly, she is making huge mistakes when she is traveling in and outside Romania. She is just incompetent and the measures the government is taking are affecting highly the economy.
In meantime they fired the head of the Anti Corruption Direction, which had the biggest number of investigations since the direction was created. Each week some new discoveries are made about the life of the people which have the biggest power in the state. We hear about corruption in hospitals, in schools, in administration. At each level.
The government promised highways, as we are the country in Europe with almost no highway. The minister of transportation announced that “if we build highways, the salary will increase and the companies will leave Romania”.
The government promised a better life. They increased the salary for the state employees, but due to their measures the Romanian currency is denominated and all of the products are more expensive now.
The government promised a reformation in education. They are planing to make a unique manual, as it was in the communist period. They took the money from the research department to give it to the orthodox church. They use the money to organize a referendum if we should change the constitution so the word “family” to be defined as “a union between man and woman”.
This summer Romania was highly affected by rain and floods destroyed houses. The state was invisible here. Currently there’s a pig disease spreading and the state is arranging to buy disinfectants from a company of a corrupted business man.
Romania is known for the most teenage girls having babies, but the state is not interested in sexual education, protection and health.
Romania is known for having 20% of the working population working outside Romania, but the state is not interested in creating measures in the regions in which there’s no industry left. It is estimated that more than 100.000 kids were left behind by their parents and are educated by their grandparents. There’s no interest in having a solution.
The main interest of the government is to make corruption legal. But it is enough! They destroyed Romania since 1990, when after the fall of communism they sold everything by gaining black money. It is enough! We want justice, not corruption!!
Yesterday we protested in Amsterdam, as even if we left, we are still Romanians. We do care. We want a country in which our friends and families have a good life. In Romania there were protests in each big or small city. In Bucharest there were more than 100.000 people and between them a few came to fight. The state forces reacted in the most violent way possible, they hurt kids and old people, they injured non-violent people. It is not the first time when violent people try to turn a protest in a fight. It happened in 2017 as well, when the football fans came to make a mess in a protest. Later it was demonstrated that those people were organized by friends of PSD (the party having the power at this moment).
Please share, we shouldn’t be alone in a fight against corruption!
Links to read a bit on the context:
– https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/world/europe/romania-prosecutor-fired.html
Petra is Gone - wondering and wandering 