Based on a criminal complaint filed without any evidence, Romanian prosecutors have started to interrogate journalists who reported on irregularities related to public procurement. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and its Romanian partner organisation warn against a dangerous precedent with a possible chilling effect on journalists and demand an internal investigation on the prosecutors’ treatment of the complaint.

The launch of the European Rule of Law Mechanism in July 2019 marks the renewed 1 opportunity for
the European Union (EU) to uphold democracy and overcome the limits of the Article 7 procedure.
Among the proposed actions, the announcement by the European Commission Vice President for
Values and Transparency Věra Jourová of a dedicated chapter to media freedom and pluralism in
the Annual Rule of Law Report was strongly welcomed by press freedom and journalists’
organisations. It is not only the acknowledgment that independent journalism and access to pluralistic
information are one of the pillars of democracy, but also a key step in addressing the worrying state
of media freedom and pluralism in the EU.

ActiveWatch released the FreeEx Report (2018-2019) - Press Freedom in Romania.

Journalist Emilia Șercan has received death threats on Monday evening, April 15th. Today Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and ActiveWatch wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs and to the Chief Inspector of the Romanian Police General Inspectorate asking them to take all appropriate measures in order to protect Emilia Șercan, to make sure that the police investigation on whom has written the threatening messages will be an effective one, and to condemn publicly these messages. Update April 24 - suspect identified by the Police.

A group of organizations have made today an appeal to the Parliament requesting that the President-General Manager of the Romanian Public Television should be dismissed.

Today, ActiveWatch joined forces with EDRi and 71 other civil society organisations from the five continents of the world to ask European Telecom Regulators to uphold net neutrality in the current negotiations about the future of the Open Internet in the European Union.

Open letter to Ms Katie Buchanan, Producer of “The Romanians are coming”

Dear Ms. Katie Buchanan,

The undersigned Romanian organizations below would like thank you for the production "The Romanians are Coming" - the two episodes of which have been broadcast on Channel 4.

The signatory organizations condemn the anti-democratic practices adopted and exercised by the current parliamentary majority and publicly ask the Romanian President not to promulgate the law through which, surreptitiously, the offenses of libel and insult were reintroduced in the Criminal Code.
In 2006, the Parliament decided to repeal the offenses of insult and libel. In 2007, the Constitutional Court ruled that the offenses of libel and insult are not repealed, then, in 2010, the High Court of Cassation and Justice has ruled that the offenses of insult and libel are abolished, and in 2013 the Constitutional Court ruled again that the offenses of libel and insult are not repealed.
 

To: UEFA
Att: The Media Committee
Subject: FC Steaua behaviour towards journalists

ActiveWatch, a Romanian human rights NGO concerned with freedom of expression and press freedom, expresses its outrage towards the unacceptable behaviour of Steaua Football Club officials against journalists and media outlets.
 

We proudly announce you that today ActiveWatch has become an IFEX member. The IFEX network of organisations is connected by a shared commitment to defend and promote freedom of expression as a fundamental human right. IFEX defends and promotes everyone’s right to free expression: IFEX advocates for the free expression rights of all, including media workers, citizen journalists, activists, artists, scholars. 

ActiveWatch, also a member of the Reporters without Borders since 2004, is a human rights organization advocating for free communication in the public interest. 

ActiveWatch invites journalists to make a common cause by asking the Greek Government to reconsider its decision to close down the broadcasting of public radio and TV channels in Greece.

The broadcasting of public radio and TV channels in Greece was shut down on Tuesday night. All employees of the media public institutions were laid off. This decision was taken on the basis of a rushed legislative act, which was voted and enforced in 24 hours. The Government’s spokesperson justified this decision by accusing the public television of wasting public money: “ERT (the Greek state television) is a characteristic case of lack of transparency and incredible waste. This (situation) ends now” (Simos Kedikoglou, cited by Associated Press).

Foto credit: Demotix

The signatory organizations express their bewilderment and concern regarding the findings and recommendations referring to mass-media included in the CVM.

ActiveWatch and Motivation Romania, with Vodafone Foundation Romania and Dedeman, held the third edition of People with Disabilities Awards "Freedom - Make It Accessible!" in Studio 3 of The Romanian Public Television, on Tuesday, November 27, 2012.

The event, produced in collaboration with TVR and moderate by Catalin Stefanescu, presented thewinners of the race to transform Romania into a society open to all members, with all the skills they have.

Personal Development Program Roma Professionals in the Medical Field launches today the fifth session of applications for the Tutoring and Scholarships component. The component targets Roma high school students and high school graduates who wish to apply next year for the admission exam in an medical education institution.

The signing organisations addressed an open letter to the Minister of Education, Mrs. Ecaterina Andronescu, in which they manifest their concern about the content of the Religious Education handbooks intended for schools and they request the MECTS to put this issue to public consultation.

"I trusted this project from the begining and it turned out that I counted correctly. Here we already have several generations of young Roma professionals who can be an example to any young Romanian. As I have said on other occasions, this project will always have my support. "
Raed Arafat, for the launching conference of Roma Professionals in the Medical Field Programme, 2012-2013 Edition

The signers of this protest - people and NGOs - took notice in dismay of the appointment of senator Dan Sova from the Social Democratic Party (PSD) as the Minister for Relations with the Parliament.

There was a concerted attack against democracy and the rule of law in the last two months. It's obvious that the new political parties in power learned neither from the errors of their predecessors, nor from the demonstrations' message from January 2012.

The signing organisations protest against the danger that NGOs could be dissolved at the request of public authorities.

On Monday, June 18th, more than a year since the start of the Syran revolution, it was for the first time ever representatives of the Syrian opposition met officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a diplomatic visit.

On September 6th, 2011, Romania acceded to the international initiative "Open Government Partnership" (OGP). This initiative promoted by the President of the United States and the President of Brasil, to which seventy countries have already acceded, encourages accountability, transparency and civic participation in the act of government by making public data accessible so that they can be creatively used by citizens for the purpose of optimizing the act of government and stimulating economical development.

The signing organisations would like to protest against the proposal to amend the Constitution, which is set to be discussed and possibly enacted this Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012 in the Chamber of Deputies, in the sense of extending from 24 to 48 hours the period when a person can be detained.

This document's signing organisations have repeatedly shown that the European Directive 2006/24/EC on the retention of data in regard to international communication and its implementation in Romania constitute a serious violation of the citizens' right to privacy.

The signing non-guvernamental organisations consider that the draft law initiated by the Government on giving compensations to citizens whose properties were abusively confiscated produces major disparities and damages rights provided by the Romanian Constitution.

The debate will be attended by members of the Gendarmerie, Deputies and Senators who are current members of the Parliamentary Committees for Human Rights, officials of the Ministry of Administration and Interior, as well as members of the civil society and journalists.

The signing organisations reaffirm their request to all political parties to take into account the protests held in Bucharest and in other cities from Romania and abroad.

Organisations of the civil society request all political parties to take into consideration the main demands of the demonstrators in Bucharest and in other cities from Romania and abroad: the resignation of Romania's President, Government and the organisation of early parliamentary elections.

To the attention of Mr. Teodor Baconschi,

This press release is the organisations' reply to the invitation for consultation addressed by Teodor Baconschi from the behalf of the Democratic Liberal Party.

Taking into consideration the latest proposals concerning the election law, the 2012 Coalition for Fair Elections demands the withdrawal of the draft law on the merger of elections in 2012 from public agenda.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency and the Pro Democracy Association, in partnership with the National Council for Combating Discrimination, organised today, December 18^th, 2011, the debate “Identity and stereotypes. The depiction of the Roma people in the Media”.

Coalition 2012 for Fair Elections' position towards the merging of local and legislative elections and the amending of the Election Law fo 2012

Taking into account the initiative of the political parties in power to merge elections and amend the voting system for the next year's elections, the Coalition 2012 for Fair Elections expresses its concern in regard to the possible devastating effects of these changes on Romania's already precarious level of democracy.

ActiveWatch in partnership with the Association for Roma Journalists organise the free course in Journalism and Media Culture for teenagers age 15-18 from the Colentina neighbourhood.

The exam of true democracy: fair elections

Press release: September 28th, 2011.

In full economic crisis - whose endurance and dimension are testing democratic societies, taking into account the frequent anti-democratic drifts, the increase of racism and populist tendencies in Romania and in Europe and understanding the importance of the year 2012 for the consolidation of the democratic process that finds itself today to be in a serious deadlock, ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, the Pro Democracy Association, the Center for Legal Resources, the organisation Romani CRISS and Transparency International Romania decided to come together and found the Coalition 2012 for Fair Elections. The Coalition intends to ensure a favourable climate for the organisation of fair elections in Romania.

On Thursday, September 15^th, at the Chamber of Deputies, a meeting took place between non-guvernamental organisations, trade unions and members of political parties, on the one hand, and members of the Ministry of Administration and Interior, on the other hand, to debate the draft law on public assemblies (Law no. 60/1991 on organising public meetings).

Today, September 5^th, the Alliance for  the Rule of Law* made a public request to the Standing Bureau of the Chamber of Deputies to send back the draft law on the amendment of the Mines Law no. 85/2003 to the specialized committees in order to be subjected to a real public debate.

We request that Mayor of Bucharest Sorin Oprescu to organise a public debate in regard to his intention to donate 10 million lei from the City hall’s budget to the Romanian Orthodox Church. Taking into account that this donation comes from public money, we believe that this issue should be publicly discussed and decided upon.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency and the Pro Democracy Association launched a plea today to officials and political institutions for starting a structured and responsible process of systematic and honest consultations with the Romanian society on the constitutional or administrative reforms, but also on the organisation of a national referendum concerning the change of the administrative map of the country.

The civil society requests that the President send back the law on single-ballot election of mayors.

The partner organizations of the  Alliance for the Rule of Law – ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, the Pro Democracy Association and the Center for Legal Resources sent to the President Traian Basescu a “plea for preserving a competitive voting system for the election of mayors and for ensuring the highest electoral representativity for the entire local community”.

The partner organisations of the Alliance for the Rule of Law request the Romanian Senate to start a new procedure for the appointment and the election of the civil society’s representative to the Superior Council of Magistracy on the basis of art. 133 alin (1) lit b of the Romanian Constitution and art. 18 of the Law no. 317/2004 on the Superior Council of Magistracy.

The civil society would like to highlight the possible dangers of creating a court precedent by admitting appeals against the Senate’s two decisions to validate the members of the Superior Council of Magistracy, a precedent that would plunge Romania into an unparalleled institutional crisis.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency and the Pro Democracy Association express their concern about the Parliament’s action to obstruct the National Anticorruption Directorate’s investigation on Deputy Monica Iacob Ridzi.

On Thursday, November 25th, the press conference “The Legitimacy and the Advisability of the Buzesti-Berzei-Uranus-Calea Rahova Highway” took place. The participants: Nicusor Dan, president of Save Bucharest Association, Doina Vella, member of the Pro_Do_Mo Association, Dumitru Dobrev, lawyer, Cecilia Badea, lawyer, Nicolae Radulescu Dobrogea, president of the Eco Civica Foundation, Ionut Pitulescu, the Centre for the Intercultural Research “Anthropoesis”, representatives of the expropriated citizens.

The event marks the end of the fouth edition of the "Transparency of the European Funds" project.  It is brought about by the launch of the "Transparency of European Funds in Romania. Investigative journalists. The Free Access to Information of Public Interest. Case studies"  report and the "Index of Public Integrity" (www.afaceripublice.ro), an online instrument issued and developped by the ActiveWatch team for those interested in increasing tranparency of the act of government and in combating corruption.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency expressed its view on the records from the “Vantu file”. The dramatic situation of the relations between media owners, editors and journalists which was pointed out by these published records shows that Media institutions in Romania need a rearrangement of relations between the three entities.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, APADOR-CH, the Angel Association and the Association for Tehnology and Internet would like to invite you on Friday, October 22nd, 11:00 a.m., at a debate on the issue of identity cards and the new draft law which was open to public debate by the Ministry of Administration and Interior.

The civil society discovers with regret that several important members of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) – and most of all, Senator Gyorgy Frunda – turned out to be in recent years spearheads in obstructing any strategies and instruments of combating corruption in Romania.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, alongside other 21 non-governmental organizations, asked the President of Romania and the Minister of Culture to remove from office Mr. Nicolae Stan, the Head of the Directorate for Culture, Cults and National Cultural Patrimony and Mr. Stefan Damian, an employee in the same institution.

The Initiative for Fair Justice took notice with concern of the Court’s decision to declare two chapters of the law on the National Integrity Agency as unconstitutional.

The signing organizations support the petition Dignity and Integrity made public in March 24^th, 2010 through which magistrates ask the Superior Council of Magistracy to react accordingly to the implications posed by the "Vantu file" and the amending of promotion procedures in Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice.

The General Council of Bucharest is set to debate on Wednesday, March 24th, 1 a.m. the capital's 2010 draft budget. The total budget is 1,3 billion euros.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, alongside partners from the "Partnership for Good Governance III - Sustainable Development" project* would like to contest the 2010 draft law.

*Save Bucharest Association, Pro Democracy Association, the Association for Urban Transition, the Resource Center for Public Participation,the Local Development Group and other NGOs from the Platform for Bucharest.

A plea to the President of Romania, Traian Basescu, and Prime Minister, Emil Boc

The Coalition for the Rule of Law express their disapproval of the changes made to the Institute for Investigation of the Communist Crimes' initial objectives, and taking this opportunity to reform it as the Institute for Investigation of the Communits Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, Save Bucharest Association, the Association for Urban Transition, the Resource Centre fot Public Participation, the Pro Democracy Association and the ProDoMo Association would like to bring to public attention the way District 1 City Hall issued a series of permits for demolition which created a lot of damage to Bucharest's cultural heritage.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency launches the program of training and support for journalists: "Transparency for Integrity!". The project is intended for journalists from local and national press in Romania and aims at training them in monitoring the course of European funds, from accession to post implementation.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency announces the launch of the project Partnership for Good Governance - Chapter II: Sustainable Development. The project is developped alongside Save Bucharest Association, the Pro Democracy Association, the Association for Urban Transition and the Resources Center for Public Participation.

ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency announces a follow-up in 2010 of the activities developped in the program the "Transparency of European Funds in Romania".  From 2006, the AW-MMA team has developped within this project activities intended to increase the transparency of the EU funds absorption process in Romania.

Save the Danube and the Delta Association in partnership with ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency announce the launch of the Partnership for Sustainable Development. The project will ensure the necessary resources for the implementation of the horizontal component "sustainable development" in the projects financed by the Sectorial Operational Program for Human Resources Development (POS DRU) through the European Social Fund.

The Pro Democracy Association, ActiveWatch-MMA, "Cartel ALFA" Confederation and Center for Legal Resources request the specialized authorities to take the necessary measures for resolving in the most transparent manner the appeals which report irregularities of the voting process in November 22nd and December 6th 2009.

The deficient training of the electoral bureau members and the lack of information campaigns have taken their toll on today's voting. The first hours of the presidential election day revealed once more a series of long-standing irregularities in the Romanian voting process.

Platform for Bucharest asked the President of Romania not to sign the draft law for the amending of art. 7 of Law no. 50/1991 on the authorization of construction works, which was enacted by the Chamber of Deputies in the meeting held November 3rd, 2009.

The Alliance for Fair Elections, composed of the Pro Democracy Association, ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency (MMA), Cartel Alfa Confederation and the Center for Independent Journalism, points out to the danger of compromising national observers and the civil society's efforts to monitor in an objective manner the voting as a result of the increasing numbers of fictitious organisations accredited to monitor elections.

The Alliance for the Rule of Law, composed of the Pro Democracy Association, ActiveWatch-Media Monitoring Agency, the Center for Legal Resources and Transparency International Romania made a request today to the Ombudsman to inform the Constitutional Court about the GEO 106 on the organisation of the referendum concerning the moral fraud and the dangers of electoral fraud in presidential elections.

Through this letter, the organisations ask the counsellors to take a stand against real estate mob reported by the international press.