Anger and Mistrust Fuel Unabated Protests in Romania
Sunday was the 13th night in a row that protesters occupied Piata Victoriei — Victory Square — in Bucharest, after the government passed an emergency ordinance on Jan. 31
that effectively decriminalized some low-level corruption offenses, including cases of official misconduct in which the financial damage was less than 200,000 lei, or about $47,000.
12, 2017
BUCHAREST, Romania — Exactly one week after the largest protests in a quarter of a century rocked Romania, an estimated 70,000 demonstrators filled the
square outside the main government building in Bucharest on Sunday evening, determined to show those in power that the crisis was far from over.
While significantly less than the half a million who took to the streets across the country the previous Sunday, the Bucharest demonstration was still a potent sign of the resilient unrest in the country
and the loss of trust between the new government, only in office since the beginning of January, and a large sector of the population.
Many in the square on Sunday continued to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, as well as the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies
and the Senate, among the highest political offices in the country.
According to Florin Badita, 28, an activist who has helped rally people through a Facebook group he created after
a deadly nightclub fire in 2015 — a disaster partly blamed on corruption — the protests are far from over.
One day later, the prime minister accepted the resignation of Florin Iordache, the minister of justice
and one of the architects of the emergency ordinance that was the catalyst for the protests.
