Another day in the funhouse world that is Romania. First, the European Court of Human Rights has – yet again – ruled against Romania, this time for torturing people. From the ECHR: Romania committed several rights violations due to its complicity in CIA secret detainee programme. In today’s Chamber judgment, in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been … Continue reading The Hollow Men
Romania has been a quagmire of incompetence, stupidity, and corruption for many decades now, but two recent stories caught my attention because of just how scary they are. First, the Writers Union in Romania did something really weird with Herta Müller: Last week, Müller learned that she had been expelled from the USR [Romanian Writers Union] for failing to pay her annual membership fee. Several … Continue reading Chilling Effects
Well, this sounds exciting: Romanian prosecutors on Monday requested to prosecute former president Ion Iliescu and ex-prime minister Petre Roman for “crimes against humanity” during the deadly aftermath of the country’s 1989 revolution. Attorney general Augustin Lazar asked President Klaus Iohannis to give the green light to open criminal proceedings against the former leaders, according to a statement by the public prosecutor. Former deputy prime … Continue reading A Maybe Kinda Sorta Crime Against Humanity
As long-time readers know, my life has taken a lot of strange twists and turns. But the one thing I never ever thought I’d be saying about myself is that I am the world’s greatest expert on Transnistria. Yes, I know. I realize that the topic is boring or irrelevant to 99% of my readers. I also realize that I’ve been absent from this blog … Continue reading Pilgrim’s Progress
I’m not quite sure where I found this picture, but it’s stuck with me for the past few weeks. At first, it seems rather simple, but it reminds me of a lot of Romania’s recent history. Here’s the picture: There are several things to unpack here: The man in the photo is Nicolae Guta, a man I’ve written about many times before. You can see … Continue reading It All Seems Just Like Yesterday
All Things Romania 