Every day when the Lutheran church bell strikes noon, people fall silent in a leafy street in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu. For more than 500 days, in snow, drizzle and scorching sun, a group of residents has staged a silent protest in the center of the picturesque city.
Always at the same time, and always at the same place: outside the headquarters of Romania’s ruling Social Democrat party (PSD), which is embroiled in corruption scandals and accused by Brussels of flouting democratic values.
The message to the PSD is simple, Ciprian Ciocan said: “We know what you are doing and we are watching every move that you do, and we are here to defend the rule of law.”
He said he never knows how many people will show up to protest.
Ciocan, a 30-year old entrepreneur-turned-leader of a nongovernmental organization, was one of the founders of V Vedem din Sibiu, which can be translated as “we are watching you from Sibiu.”
Its logo is styled after the traditional windows in Sibiu’s steep red-tiled roofs: narrow ovals that look like shrewdly watchful eyes.
The grassroots movement is another sign of the struggle for the soul of the former communist country, one of the EU’s newest, poorest and most corrupt members.
V Vedem din Sibiu began on Dec. 11, 2017, when the government attempted to overhaul the judiciary in a way critics said increased state control over judges and the widely respected National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).
Since the PSD came to power, Romania has experienced its biggest protests since the fall of communism, in Bucharest and dozens of towns and cities.
While large demonstrations come and go, Sibiu’s silent flash mob never stops.
“Those 15 minutes every day, it is like a flame that never goes out,” said Ciocan, who ensures protests are filmed for Facebook, where they pick up a few thousand views. “Somebody knows that there are still people in Sibiu, no matter whether it rains or snows or whatever.”
Bianca Toma of the Romanian Centre for European Policies, an organization that supports the group, said this kind of protest is unusual for a small city.
Sibiu is home to 154,000 people, a small share of Romania’s 19.6 million citizens.
“They were the first local group and what they have done with their protest is quite interesting and impressive, because usually Bucharest or big cities like Cluj were first to react to what is happening,” Toma said.
On an overcast, drizzly day in May, about 25 people of all ages showed up. The protest takes place in Sibiu’s picturesque center, where handsome Baroque buildings testify to its former life as Hermannstadt, the center of German-speaking Transylvania.
Some protesters had Romanian and EU flags. Others brought handmade signs reading “resist” or accusing the PSD and its junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, of being “a mafia.”
Across the street, nobody entered or left the PSD headquarters, an elegant sand-colored building, with large windows covered with book displays and posters.
Diana Manta, a 37-year-old who works in publishing, tries to come every day.
“My lunch break is here,” she said. “I do this because I am against corruption, I am against the politicians who are leading Romania currently and because I see corruption affecting our lives. We don’t have hospitals because of corruption, we don’t have decent schools for our kids, we don’t have roads.”
She also worries that corruption prevents Romania from making the best use of EU funds, about 31 billion euros (US$34.5 billion) between 2014 and next year.
If she can make the weekend protests, she brings her eight-year-old daughter.
“I was seven years old when communism ended here in Romania and I want her to grow up in the same atmosphere where you are free to do what you want,” she said.
Scrolling through the group’s Facebook page is a trip through the seasons. In December last year, protesters stand by heaps of dirty snow, a few wearing Romanian tricolors as scarves.
During a downpour in July last year, people carry umbrellas and letters spelling mulumesc mult (thanks a lot): a message to Laura Codrua Kovesi, who was sacked that month as head of the DNA, where she had overseen high-profile convictions.
The same street has also played host to Mayday picnics, teach-ins and events for Romanians visiting from abroad, who are greeted with bread and salt.
The gatherings always happen in the same spot, except on one day in May when EU leaders visited the town for a unity-building summit looking ahead to post-Brexit times.
The summit was chaired by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, a former mayor of Sibiu who was elected president in 2014 on an anti-corruption platform.
Before Sibiu’s central square had even been cleared of summit debris, the European Commission warned it could trigger an EU sanctions procedure against Romania.
Proposed changes to the judiciary risked creating “‘de facto’ impunity for crimes, including crimes of corruption,” European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans wrote to Romania’s most senior politicians.
Experts at the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission had warned the changes would “seriously impair the effectiveness of the Romanian criminal justice system” in the fight against crime, including corruption.
Under pressure from the EU and following a referendum in May, Romanian voters decisively rejected a widely discussed amnesty for corruption offenses, the governing PSD has dropped some of the most controversial measures.
In a triple blow, the party also lost seats in European Parliament elections, while PSD leader Liviu Dragnea was sent to jail to begin a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption.
The European Commission welcomed the change in policy announced by Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dncil, heaping praise on her “European approach.”
In an interview with the Guardian, Dncil said she wanted to go back to an agenda “that is focused on the citizen, less on the justice system.”
However, EU officials remain cautious about how her pledges will be implemented.
Toma said the prime minister’s decision to drop an emergency ordinance that would have given an amnesty to people convicted of corruption was a good sign, but the struggle over the rule of law has not finished.
“There are many other dangers,” she said, citing the work of a special department that is investigating the DNA. “There are still things to be undone and it’s a matter of fact, not just [making] statements.”
The PSD has always rejected charges of corruption, whether from Brussels or Romanian citizens, but the response varies.
When the V Vedem din Sibiu protest began, PSD workers drew the blinds, Ciocan said.
They also issued a statement accusing the demonstrators of “aggressive” behavior.
The response to international media feels more polished. Questions to the PSD were directed to one of their candidates for the European Parliament.
Cristian Terhes, a Romanian-American priest who has been living in California for the last 16 years, subsequently won a seat in the European Parliament, although his party lost ground.
Sibiu’s peaceful protests were “clear proof that democracy is working,” he said.
He claimed that many politicians and officials were convicted of corruption through tampered evidence and the underhand work of secret services: accusations that echo those made by Dragnea.
Terhes also said the Council of Europe’s independent experts had made “many errors and missed facts,” and claimed judges had more independence in Romania than in any other EU country.
The PSD message does not convince protesters in Sibiu.
“We don’t want to live in a country where corrupt people are leading us and taking our country into a mess,” said Paula Dorr, 13, who was attending the protest on school break, along with her father.
The protesters plan to be back tomorrow.
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