We See You: A Silent Anti-Corruption Movement Erupts In Romania

Tara Skurtu, an American poet living in Romania and Radu Vancu, a Romanian poet and activist sat down to talk about the demonstrations taking place in the country, about democracy and a new movement started in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu, called “Vă Vedem” (We See You).

Vancu offers an overview of the events that took place in Romania as a response to the Government’s initiatives, analyzing the causes and effects of the protests. First, there were the January protests against the Social Democrat Party’s (PSD) attempts to decriminalize the abuse of power. That decree was designed especially “to save the PSD president, Liviu Dragnea, already sentenced for election fraud, from another sentence regarding an abuse of power he committed”, and it was eventually withdrawn.

At the present moment, though, the PSD is pushing to change the justice laws (that have passed the first step before being promulgated – the Chamber of Deputies – and are now on the desk of the PSD-dominated Senate), which will not only save Dragnea, but also generally protect criminals to the victims’ detriment.

If these laws take effect, for example, a prosecutor must announce the alleged criminal before starting to gather evidence against him (which makes it impossible to find evidence against drug dealers or politicians who are bribed, among many other cases of fraud). No filmed evidence would be accepted as proof in court (imagine how useless all the protection measures in city centers, malls or banks would become); the victim would always have to give testimony in the presence of the aggressor (imagine this in the case of a rape victim—or of a molested child); and so on.