Watch 100.000 People Turning On Their Phone Flashlights During The Biggest Peaceful Protest In Romania In The Last 27 Years

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The video above was shot during yesterday's anti-corruption protest in Bucharest. What you hear before the actual lightning moment is a countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

For the last 6 days Romania witnessed the biggest protests wave since the fall of communism, 27 years ago. The main cause is lack of trust in the newly installed government rooted in a string of mistakes which debuted on January 29th..

I will try to make a short recap.

Two months ago we had parliamentary elections. They were comfortably won by the left party, called PSD, with 46%, which allowed them to make a parliamentary majority with a centrist party called ALDE. Together, they proposed the PM and put together a new government. The election were correct, everything was democratic.

Just a few days after they were installed, they prepared a decree which decriminalized a few corruption crimes (abuse of office, mainly). They did it almost in secrecy, publishing the decree during the night, on a weekend, hoping to make it official before public reaction. Alas, the public reaction was fast and unexpectedly strong. Dozens of thousands of people gathered in Place of Victory (around Government office, the building on the top right of the video). They put a lot of pressure by using incredibly creative messages, both on site and on social media. The hashtag used to group people together was #rezist (which means exactly what you think it means).

During the last few years Romania was on a strong path against corruption, with a lot of high profile officials being prosecuted and convicted, many of them already in prison at the time of the decree. This move of the newly appointed government was perceived by the protesters as a way to set free all the convicted party members and reinstall a regime dominated by abuse of power and corruption. One of the articles in the decree actually decriminalize any potential abuse of office which is below 200.000 RON (around 50.000 EUR). Basically, any public clerk can steal up to 50.000 EUR without facing criminal charges (the process will still be judged under civil law, but not under penal law, as it is right now).

The protests grew organically during the last week and what you see in the video is probably their climax. Estimations of the total number of people participating at this protest varies between 100.000 and 150.000 only in Place of Victory. In dozens of other Romanian cities there were other protests, pushing the total number of people on the streets over 300.000.

It is very important to note that all these protests were very peaceful. Protesters were firm, but civil.

As a result of these protests, the decree was canceled (although a similar law is expected in the Parliament in the next few weeks) and the justice minister is expected to resign while the minister of Entrepreneurship (yes, we do have something like this) already resigned.

At the moment of writing this article, the protests are continuing.

video credit Robot Ninja youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY7Kg61yz6DMOkBXora6m9A

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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