Thousands of Romanians held another anti-government protest on Saturday, a day after a earlier demonstration turned violent, leaving 455 people, including riot police, in need of medical treatment.
Protesters carrying Romanian, EU and other flags rallied outside government offices in Bucharest, the capital, the same place where the protest Friday had degenerated into violence.
“Have no fear! Romanians will rise up!” they yelled. Police placed traffic restrictions in the area.
Critics say Romania has lost ground in fighting corruption since the ruling Social Democratic Party assumed power in 2016.
They are urging the government to resign and call a new election.
Earlier Saturday, Romanian riot police defended their use of force at the protest Friday night in which 70 people, including 11 riot police, had to be taken to hospital.
Marius Militaru, a spokesman for Romania’s riot police, said police are pursuing charges against eight people for the violence.
Militaru said officers were ordered by Bucharest city officials to evacuate Victory Square late Friday after a protest in front of government offices that drew tens of thousands demanding the government’s resignation.
Another police spokesman, Georgian Enache, said “the legitimate state violence” was justified because protesters had been warned several times to leave the square.
Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to quell protesters.
Some people lobbed rocks, bottles and smoke bombs at riot police. Some people sustained head and other injuries while others were overcome by tear gas, authorities said.
Interior minister Carmen Dan said the riot police had not “intervened against peaceful protesters, but against dangerous hooligans who attacked the state’s authority”.
But President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the left-wing government, condemned “the brutal intervention of riot police” on Friday night.
Three journalists said they were also subjected to police violence.
Austrian public broadcaster ORF said Saturday that a cameraman covering the protest was hit by police with truncheons and the TV presenter with him was shoved up against a wall.
A journalist filming the rally for Romania’s Hotnews online website said he was kicked and shoved by riot police.
Isabela Conduruta, a 45-year-old Romanian who has worked as a cleaner for 12 years in Germany, explained why she joined Saturday’s protest.
“We want to return to Romania, but there’s too much corruption and the health care is dismal,” she told The Associated Press.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here