The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor released the 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices which cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements.
In the report on Romania, the U.S. Department of State notes that “significant human rights issues included credible reports of: cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; widespread serious official corruption; lack of investigation and accountability for gender-based violence, including but not limited to domestic and intimate partner violence and sexual violence; and abuses targeting institutionalized persons with disabilities.
The judiciary took steps to prosecute and punish officials who committed abuses, but authorities did not have effective mechanisms to do so and delayed proceedings involving alleged police abuse and corruption, with the result that many of the cases ended in acquittals. Impunity for perpetrators of some human rights abuses was a continuing problem.”
The US Department of state report on human rights for Romania last year also mentions specific cases such as the acquittals in the case of the former dissident Gheorghe Ursu, killed during the communist regime by the Securitate political police, the pending in court of high-sounding files, like the 1989 Romanian Revolution and the 1990 “miners’ riot” , the judge Cristi Danilet being excluded from magistracy, the police and Ministry of Interior officials’ wrongfully ordering the surveillance of Radu Gavris, deputy chief of the Bucharest Police, to prevent him from competing for a leadership position in the police force or restriction of media and journalists’ access to information of public interest, here being exemplified the case of investigative journalist Emilia Sercan, threatened by officials in her quest to find out the truth about the PhD theses of high ranking officials, who are accused of plagiarism. The report also reminds the scandal prompted by anti-vaxxer and anti-EU senator Diana Sosoaca and her husband, who detained and assaulted Italian RAI journalist Lucia Goracci.
The entire report on Romania is available here.
The U.S. Department of State submits reports on all countries receiving assistance and all United Nations member states to the U.S. Congress in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.
The reports highlight where governments have unjustly jailed, tortured, or even killed political opponents, activists, human rights defenders, or journalists, including in Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, and Syria. They document abuses of peaceful protestors demanding democracy and fundamental freedoms in countries such as Burma, Belarus, Cuba, Hong Kong, and Sudan. They highlight worrying cases of transnational repression – where governments reach across borders to harass, intimidate, or murder dissidents and their loved ones – as exemplified in the dangerous forced diversion by Belarus of an international commercial flight for the sole purpose of arresting a critical independent journalist.
But they also contain signs of progress and glimmers of hope, as the indomitable will to live freely can never be extinguished. In Iraq, people cast their votes to shape the future of their country in more credible and transparent parliamentary elections than in 2018. In Botswana, a court advanced the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons by upholding the decriminalization of same-sex relations. In Turkmenistan, all imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses conscientious objectors to military service were pardoned, a win for freedom of religion or belief. The stability, security, and health of any country depends on the ability of its people to freely exercise their human rights – to feel safe and included in their communities while expressing their views or gender, loving who they love, organizing with their coworkers, peacefully assembling, living by their conscience, and using their voices and reporting from independent media to hold governments accountable. There is much progress to be made, here in the United States and globally.