Page 44 - bne_Magazine_September_2018

44 I Southeast Europe bne September 2018
BUCHAREST BLOG:
Romania joins the bad boys of Central Europe
Clare Nuttall in Bucharest
The Romanian government has been acting like an authoritarian bully, thumbing its nose at criti- cism from the street and Brussels as it pushes ahead with plans to take direct control of the the justice system as well as decapitate the highly respected National Anticorruption Director-
ate (DNA). A violent crackdown on demonstrators in Bucharest on August 10 has shocked the nation and only served to sully the government’s already poor image as a progressive European democracy.
The initially peaceful protest outside the government building on Victory Square turned violent after riot police repeatedly fired tear gas into the crowd and turned water cannons on the protestors. The crowds had swollen to around 100,000, bolstered by members of the diaspora some of which had flown in from their new homes specifi-
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cally to reinvigorate the flagging protest movement. Romania has become
used to protests as the population has become radicalised by the ruling par- ties' repeated attempts to undermine the country’s inchoate democracy and
a “first step to dictatorship”. Mobile phone footage released in the days
after the protest shows unprovoked and brutal attacks on protesters, as well as attacks by suspected provocateurs on the gendarmerie – football thugs brought in
Effigies of PSD leaders dressed in prison stripes appeared at protests in early 2017.
“A violent crackdown on demonstrators in Bucharest on August 10 has shocked the nation”
innoculate itself from prosecution for graft, lead by the pioneering anticor- ruption institution of the DNA.
One protester, interviewed by bne Intel- liNews’ correspondent at the protest, said the police were “trying to make us terribly mad” with their intense and unprovoked use of tear gas, adding he feared the crackdown at the protest was
to provide a justification for the use of police violence, intended to intimidate the increasingly vocal citizenship that are determined to hold the government to account.
Once eager for Brussels’ approval, as it sought a more central role within the EU, in recent months the government in Bucharest has followed a European-wide