It's probably that you feel like having enough with the Coronavirus topics, and the related pandemic, but I am putting some puzzle pieces together for this whole awful episode that we're currently living and they seem to come out of nowhere. What I want to point out in this article is strictly related to my country though, Romania, and how our state abuses, and abused our constitutional freedom, and moreover how it transformed this pandemic into a business against us.
Recently I stumbled upon an interview on youtube of a Police representative from Timisoara, which is one of the largest cities in Romania, talking quite open about the fines that have been given to citizens during this pandemic, among whom I fell as victim as well, and revealed some of the insides on how the police sees fines out of the pandemic as well.
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The Romanian communist flag that is quite representative nowadays for what happens with this country currently
What he said, and I will quote him, is that cops are not ordered to give fines directly, to citizens that don't obey the state of emergency acts by carrying, whenever they get out, the self filed declaration on what reason are they getting out and where are they planning on going, and for how long, but they are actually encouraged/stimulated to do so.
He basically said that there is no tickets norm that every policeman has as a target for every day, but supervisors encourage them to do their best in having as many as possible. That explains quite clearly why the cop that fined me justified himself in any possible way that he must fine me, and there's no room for a warning, like it was the end of the world that I didn't had my personal statement on me at that time.
From what I remember, when the emergency state was enforced by the president there have been fined thousands of people, all over the country, for over $1 million dollars worth of fines, in just 24 hours. I doubt any country in the world got to such a number, and I wonder how many others, especially countries with so few cases of infections with COVID-19, resorted to such behavior and confinements against their citizens.
What is highly important for the whole situation in my opinion is that the prime minister called recently the big mouth policeman that got to the media with such insights and asked him not to do it again, in a polite way. One would say that the pen is in the hands of the cop on the streets for such situations, and that's entirely true, but when you have a supervisor asking at the shift's end why so low on fines today the situation changes.
Moreover, I found from the same interview, that at the end of the year cops are evaluated based on the number of tickets as well, when being decorated or not, hence the more the better seems to be the incentive to be a good cop and to get promoted. For you to have a better picture of what type of freedoms are being violated by this emergency state law enforcement in Romania I have translated a small paragraph from the official presidency website describing exactly what I'm pointing at and you can draw your own conclusions.
"In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the achievement of the consequences management, in relation to the evolution of the epidemiological situation, during the state of emergency, the exercise of the following rights and freedoms is restricted, in proportion to the degree of achievement of the criteria provided by art. 3 para. (5):
-Free circulation;
-the right to intimate, family and private life;
-inviolability of the home;
-the right to education;
-freedom of assembly;
-the right to strike;
-the right of private property;
-economic freedom."
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Nice police officer ass being protected by military forces in checking citizens mentioned documents
What's left for us, mister President? Not much I would say. Now, it is true that ever since people started complaining on social media, and on some other media outlets that had the guts to tackle the subject about these freedoms being violated, and the abuses of the police, it seems that the law enforcers are a bit more cautious on how easily they fine people, but I doubt protests will end here.
After the pandemic will end, I am 100% sure that there will be lawsuits against the Romanian state and police officers for their acts during the lock down, and there will be for sure complaints towards the EU and human rights institutions, I being one of the many that will make public this situation. It's not the first time when Romania played against its citizens with illegal laws and lost thousands of trials for that. I am one of those that won against the state once for abusively taxing me.
The way I see it, this pandemic has been used by the Government and Ministry of Defence to simply make money out of the already suffering poor population of this country and it won't get away with it that easy. There will be consequences mister Klaus Iohannis, I promise you.
Thanks for attention,
Adrian
oh they are doing this in lots of places... the stories in Australia are shocking as well.
Why do we accept that? I don't understand why we don't get out and strike.