In Bucharest (Romania), tens of thousands of people (even 100.000 as estimated by Digi24) went out in Victoriei Square to protest against the government.
They protested against the huge level of corruption that’s happening in Romania and also against the the fact that the politicians are trying to change the penal code. They want to weaken the rule of law so that it will be more suitable for them when they will be in jail.
The demonstration was peaceful until several groups of people started throwing bottles, pavement pieces and other things at the policemen guarding the protest and they fought back with tear gas and a water canon.
Hundreds of people were hurt, some of them even had to go to the hospital.
the gendarmerie just made a statement about last night, saying that their response was justified and proportionate to the protesters’ level of violence. the order to use teargas and water cannons was given by the city’s prefecture. people are now asking why, instead of removing the small number of violent protesters from the crowd and dealing with them separately, the police shot teargas randomly into the otherwise peaceful crowd and beat up people who had their hands up.
some of the psd politicians are already expressing their support for the gendarmes and saying their attacks were justified. romania’s president reacted by making a facebook post about how appalled he is and how totally not ok this is. fuck every single one of these people sideways with a police baton.
Romanian folk costume has remained relatively unchanged and continues to be worn for festival occasions. The basic model for women consists of an embroidered blouse and skirt, belt, head scarf, and often a vest or jacket. As in many cultures, embroidery is placed at “vulnerable” areas of the body: the neck, cuffs, and hem, but also at the shoulders and sleeves as a symbol of strength. This example of a full festival costume is striking in the variation of blue tones and abundant embroidery. The coordination of the various components is symbolic of the pride and care given to folk traditions in Romanian culture.
The Romanian government just decriminalised official misconduct.
This essentially makes corruption legal.
what is life
fuckers passed the law in the middle of the night
despite protests being held against this in the last two weeks
there were more than 100k people on the streets a few days ago
i can’t even
I’m shaking with rage. A huge number of politicians will have their criminal records thrown out. People who have cause state prejudice of millions of dollars (they’re estimating a total of almost one billion). People who have tried to rig the votes in the last presidential election. The officials who had done the inspection in the Colectiv club before the fire that claimed 64 lives last year will be off their charges too.
Protests are being organized throughout the country. I’m so worried that violence may break out, despite the fact that all protests so far have been peaceful.
There are 175.000 people out in the streets in the entire country. I’m hoping this changes something.
Over 300.000 at the moment. It’s the biggest protest in Romania in the last 25 years.
HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN SHARING THIS
Update 02.02.2017:
There were some incidents at the protest in Bucharest last night, some bands of people have become violent towards the police forces, throwing firecrackers and other blunt objects towards them. This determined the police to ask all protesters to go home, so that the situation doesn’t escalate. They also used tear gas on the instigators. 4 people were injured.
I want to stress that this is not how the protest should be seen. The majority of the people is peaceful and this is the sole incident so far. The crowd condemned the actions of these aggressors, shouting “Not like this!”.
The protests will continue tonight. The people, along with the president, the Superior Council of Magistracy, the attorney general, the European Union and the embassies of several countries are asking the repeal of the emergency ordinance that would decriminalise official misconduct.
200,000+ protesters last night as well and another protest announced for tonight (feb. 3) people basically said that they’ll be out in the streets as long as they have to
these are the biggest protests in romania since the 1989 revolution that brought down ceausescu’s communist regime
the social-democrat party (psd), responsible for doing this, came into power again at the end of last year with the support of less than 20% of total voters (given a turnout of 39.5% THIS IS WHAT FUCKING HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T GET OFF YOUR ASS AND VOTE)
‘The PSD won elections [in December] with a huge vote. The government’s power is legitimate,” Dragnea said, labelling the centre-right president, Klaus Iohannis, the “moral author of last night’s violence’
DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING
interior minister carmen dan publicly singled out several journalists and opposition politicians as ‘instigators’ in the protests (link in romanian)
some of the people who will benefit from these decrees are under investigation for (link in romanian) are under investigation for large-scale electoral fraud and literal fucking murder. as in, their actions killed people, and not like 20 years ago. it happened in 2015.
FUN TRIVIA: did you know the european commission said that if this continues it will affect the amount of funding romania gets from the eu
basically it sucks and i’m going to take this opportunity to explain to all you tumblr ~pastel communists once again that this level of entrenched corruption that puts convicts in office and openly decriminalizes fraud, theft and yup, potentially actual murder, is the heritage of 5 decades of communist rule
Steel Phoenix Studios 