Cav's Place

Picking up right from where the previous report left off, let me first quickly go through what that one site reports about the numbers in Victory Square each evening except Sunday, since there were still at least some people there. Keeping in mind that they may inflate the numbers, for last week they said about 200 on Wednesday, 150 Thursday, and 250 Friday and Saturday. Also Saturday, a group of people decided to spend the entire night in the Square, reports of this coming from many sources and what I saw in pictures were over 30 people in the group late in the evening, after what was the regular evening protest had ended, and five or so left in the morning. Then, for this week, back to that one source and now even they said only dozens were in the Square Monday evening, 100 to 150 Tuesday, about 100 Wednesday, “up to” 100 Thursday and only a few dozen today, when there was some rain again.

Sunday, March 5, started with a meeting of the “Corruption Kills” community, which tried to go some way towards organizing these protests, the location only being sent to those who filled a form by a certain time. One of the activists I know selected that she was interested in it, but I didn’t recognize anyone, except of course Florin Badita, among the handful of people in the few pictures I saw posted.
The march, on the other hand, had several thousand participants at the peak, estimates ranging between 5000 and 10000. The problem was that the main issue was questionable, namely to show support for the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) after the Constitutional Court (CCR) had ruled that the manner in which it had investigated how the emergency ordinance the protests started from was initially approved had created a conflict between state powers and the DNA had overstepped its mandate, which may well be true, in the sense that the investigation went further than it should have. Also, besides firmly and explicitly supporting the DNA’s activity in general, even though it commits abuses as well and the way in which it works with the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) is a serious cause for concern, the list of demands included removing the influence of politics from CCR, which sounds good but goes against the Constitution itself.
For those reasons, the known activists who were part of the United We Save movement generally opposed this march and even one who did attend, I’d say in order to show his continued opposition to the Grindeanu government and the plans to get most measures present in both those ordinances, so including the planned pardons, adopted through the Parliament, stated that he only went as far as Unirii Square, then walked away, later posting another brief message to state what’s wrong with the DNA and with protesting against this decision of the CCR. I for one didn’t attend at all.
Still, I have reports to go by, so I guess I could quickly add a few details, starting from the fact that the start of the march was delayed from the planned 7 PM to 7:30 PM because too few people were in the Square at 7 PM. Estimates of those present when they got moving vary significantly, from 1000 to 3000 in just what I saved to use for this post, but the numbers definitely increased greatly on the way, the peak being reached at or after the Parliament, possibly as late as the moment when they reached the DNA, before the numbers started dropping as the crowd made its way back to Victory Square. The route went from Victory Square to University Square, where there was a moment of silence for the heroes of the Revolution, then to Unirii Square, turning there, reaching the Parliament, then the nearby Ministry of Justice, then the DNA on the way back. It was about 11 PM when those left finally returned to Victory Square, where they sang the anthem and then rather quickly scattered.

Moving on to the second matter, the protests started on February 28 against the attempts to at least drastically reduce the fines and increase the allowances included in an emergency ordinance adopted last year by the previous government and which established penalties for illegal logging and related activities not covered by other existing laws, if not to repeal it entirely, continued until March 8, when the next round of discussions took place. But the attitude of those who organized this protest remained the same, being nationalists and fans of conspiracy theories, seeing foreign interests everywhere, accusing the European Union of destroying our forests, bringing religion into the discussion, throwing USR along with the other parties when attacking politicians over this issue, saying they don’t feel like attracting supporters if people don’t come on their own and flinging all sorts of accusations and other crap at the other protesters and activists, taking the fact that more didn’t join them there as certain proof that they had been paid or were otherwise working for hostile groups when attending other events. As such, the number of participants was very low, and I didn’t go again after that first day.
Have posts to go by, however, and I saw that Wednesday, March 1, one person protested alone during the day and then there was some confusion during the evening, a post apologizing for the fact that the person supposed to bring some flag that others were supposed to gather around couldn’t make it. Thursday I saw a report of seven people present, but the attacks aimed at other protesters and groups, which drove me away as well, not only continued but kept getting worse. Then, on Friday, a protocol for a protest in that location every evening between March 4 and 7 and between 9 AM and 1 PM on March 8 was obtained, so there were no more problems with the gendarmes, but just a few people attended that evening as well. Counted 16 in a video from Saturday though, so there may well have been around 20 if some kept away from the camera, but some were staging quite a performance accusing all parties, including USR, of joining hands to destroy Romania’s forests. Sunday I’m not even sure there was a protest there, as I saw a post stating that there had been one but nothing else, and even one of the few known to keep going there was at the march. Monday there was a picture of a single protester, though I assume there must have been at least two, if somebody else took it. And Tuesday there were a few people again.
Then came the important day, March 8, when maybe about a dozen protested outside, at least a few going to observe the session in the Parliament at some point, while representatives of environmental NGOs could actually take part in the negotiations inside, where the protesters didn’t have access. The reports at the end of the day stated that the NGOs felt they had been listened to and were cautiously optimistic, having reached agreements on the vast majority of the issues, the prospect of the emergency ordinance being repealed or most of the penalties included in it being drastically reduced no longer appearing likely. There will be more discussions next week, however.

And since I’m at March 8, let me end this with the fact that, on top of simply posting the usual Women’s Day messages, quite a number of known activists, especially those that are now part of Demos, have made various statements for women’s rights and supported various actions taking place. The notable public event that I saw quite a few reports about was a flash mob that took place in front of the Ministry of Justice, demanding better protection for women, especially against domestic violence, including ways to issue emergency restriction orders. The few dozen participants held flowers with cards with the name, when it was known, and a brief story of a murdered woman, read said cards, placed the flowers in front of the Ministry and, in the end, dropped to the ground.