Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Defending Human Rights

The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the Romanian Helsinki Committee (RHC) urged Romanian authorities to investigate police abuses against Roma and to prosecute those who are accused of abusing the rights of Roma, as well as to investigate incidents of anti-Roma violence and to prosecute those suspected of committing racially motivated crimes. The government frequently ignored their requests for information, or responded only after considerable delay and with incomplete or inaccurate information.

Human rights organizations waged an intense campaign in 1998 to abolish the provisions of article 200 that criminalize homosexual conduct and limit expression and association. During a meeting in January 1998 with Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC; www.iglhrc.org), Romanian President Emil Constantinescu promised to give individual pardons to all people sentenced under paragraphs 1 and 5 of article 200. Mariana Cetiner, arrested in 1994 for asking another woman to have sex with her, was released in March. Human Rights Watch has no information about the status of other prisoners, and the Ministry of Justice has ignoredignored all requests for additional information. Despite the effortsof human rights activists, led by the increasingly prominent Bucharest-based ACCEPT, the parliament once again voted down amendments to article 200 during 1998.