The citizens in the frontline were not, as some officials claimed, hooligans picking a fight with the forces of order. But the protests did soon turn ugly. After some people began to lob stones, eggs, and bottles at the riot police, the gendarmes panicked and responded with tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannon. Peaceful protesters were hit with clubs, women with their children were tear-gassed and intimidated, random passers-by were brutally beaten, and journalists were shoved because they were filming the abuse. 455 people needed medical attention. [...]
It is unsurprising that corruption is at the heart of the current protests. This plague is rooted in the early 1990s, and Romania’s transition from the old one-party Communist regime to democracy. Many “smart guys” who had held key positions during the Communist era remained in power and took over the private businesses which now absorbed public funds. The disarray in the transition period, plus the lack of democratic institutions and civil society, allowed corruption to flourish. [...]
Almost four million Romanians — close to a quarter of the population — work abroad in all kinds of jobs, from doctors and engineers to cleaners and strawberry pickers. Romania’s 2007 entry into the European Union allowed its citizens far greater opportunities to make their way elsewhere — an opening many of them took. According to a recent UN Report, Romania in fact had the world’s second-highest increase in its diaspora between 2007 and 2015. With an average 7.3 percent annual growth rate in the number of citizens living abroad, Romania came behind only war-torn Syria (with an annual increase of 13.1 percent). [...]
In the wake of this campaign, the issue of the authorities’ disrespect for the law was again at the center of the next wave of protests. On October 30, 2015, sixty-four people were killed, and hundreds burned and injured, after a fire broke out at a Bucharest nightclub. The next day, the press reported that mayor Cristian Popescu Piedone had granted the club an operating license without the legally required permit from the fire department.
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