The Week in Review March 26 – April 1 2016

A look at the headline-making events this past week.

Newsroom, 03.04.2016, 14:00

The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI)
is a respected, reliable partner in the Euro-Atlantic intelligence community,
says Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis

According to Romania’s President Klaus
Iohannis, the country’s Intelligence Service (SRI) is a respected, reliable
partner in the Euro-Atlantic intelligence community, contributing to Romania’s
image as a security provider in the region. During the presentation of the
Service’s activity report on 2015, president Iohannis praised the institution’s
contribution to the fight against corruption, tax evasion and organized crime.
The Service has done its job thoroughly and efficiently, the president went on
to say. In turn, the SRI director, Eduard Hellvig said that 350 people
suspected of possible links with terrorist networks were expelled or refused
entry into Romania. Among the challenges the institution is presently facing
there are the inflow of refugees, Russia’s aggressiveness, the latest
developments in two of Romania’s close neighbours, the instability in Ukraine
and the lack of credibility in the ex-soviet Republic of Moldova, a country
with a Romanian-speaking majority. According to Hellvig, the lack of
transparency is one of the institution’s shortcomings. In another move, the SRI
announced it investigates, together with its Western partners, the use of
pre-paid anonymous phone cards from Romania in regions known for the activity
of terrorist networks. The Service supports the idea that buyers must provide
personal identification data when they get these cards, which according to SRI
sources, have been used to threaten the employees of a EU-based transport
company. In the wake of the bloody terror attacks in Brussels, Romania’s
technocratic Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said that such pre-pay cards had been
used in masterminding terror attacks in EU countries.

The victims of the blaze that destroyed
the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest were commemorated five months after the
tragedy

Five months on from the blaze that ripped through the Colectiv
nightclub in Bucharest, the 64 victims have been commemorated by relatives,
friends and survivors. The Prime Minister’s Control Unit, that has investigated
the tragedy, concluded the situation went out of control after those involved
had failed to tackle it properly. However, the Department for Emergency
Situations said that some data provided by the government report are
contradicting existing information and are running counter national or
international procedures that are to be applied in such situations. The head of
the aforementioned institution, Raed Arafat, said, fresh from a meeting with
Control Unit representatives, that he was considering stepping down provided
the Prime Minister called for it. Meanwhile, the Bucharest Court has ruled that
the three owners of the Colectiv nightclub be remanded under conditional bail.

Another communist prison guard has been indicted for
torture

The former head warden of the
forced labour colony in Periprava, in the Danube Delta, the 80-year old Ion
Ficior, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday. The Bucharest Court
of Appeal found him guilty of crimes against humanity. In the five years in
which he ran the colony, between 1958 and 1963, he implemented and coordinated
a repressive, abusive, inhuman and discretionary detention regime against
political detainees, thus causing the death of at least 103 inmates. According
to the indictment, the prisoners in Periprava did not get any medical care,
were deprived of food and heat and were subjected to numerous forms of physical
and psychological torture. Prosecutors show in the indictment that the regime
imposed in the colony by Ficior didn’t even provide basic means of subsistence
for the prisoners, whose sentences were longer than 10 years. Besides
sentencing him to 20 years in prison, the court also ruled that Ficior be
stripped off of all his military ranks, on the basis of which, for decades, the
former head warden cashed in a generous pension. Now, according to the court’s
ruling, he must pay 300,000 Euro in damages to plaintiffs, former detainees or
their families. Ficior is the second, out of a group of dozens of Communist
torturers who are still alive, that the Romanian judiciary has sentenced to
time in prison. Last month, in a resounding first in the Romanian justice, the
former head warden of the Ramnicu Sarat Penitentiary, Alexandru Visinescu, got
a final 20-year prison sentence, also for crimes against humanity, committed 50
years ago.

The American Chamber of Commerce in
Romania has issued its activity report

The latest report issued by the American
Chamber of Commerce in Romania in the past week, on the competitiveness of the
Romanian economy acknowledges the country’s positive developments in the global
competitiveness rankings, while pointing to the still huge gap separating
Romania from the EU countries in terms of the average GDP per capita. The
indicators that have improved from the 2011 report are the fight against
corruption and Internet access. The document has identified domains that
require the authorities’ rapid intervention, such as healthcare, education,
infrastructure, demographic transition and brain drain. Also attending the
presentation ceremony deputy Prime Minister Costin Borc said that such reports
are helping the government to improve its activity.

Director Radu
Jude’s film Aferim was the big winner of the Gopo Film Awards in Bucharest

The best Romanian films were awarded prizes on Monday evening at the
National Theater in Bucharest as part of the 10th edition of the
Gopo Gala Awards, offered by the Association for the Promotion of Romanian
films. 84 films launched in cinema halls last year were nominated for the
awards gala but the star of the evening was undoubtedly Radu Jude’s film Aferim!
The film depicts the atmosphere of the 19th century Wallachia.
Winner of the best director award in 2015 at the Berlin Film Festival, Aferim!
swept the board, scooping 12 prizes, including the Gopo Award for best
film. The film also got the award for best director. The award for best actor
in a leading role went to Teodor Corban for his role in Aferim! In the
best actress in a leading role category, the Gopo award went to Ioana Flora for
the role of Paula in the film Back Home directed by Andrei Cohn. The
award for the best debut went to Nicolae Constantin for his role in Nicolae
Constantin Tanase’s production The World is Mine.