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Interior Minister Carmen Dan said on Tuesday in Oradea that this electoral campaign has an aggressive peculiarity, underlining the fact that "there have been no cases where we came across demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in the same place since the 1990s."
"We are witnessing the worsening of aggressive attitudes, and this also compels us to treat these approaches with all the exigency, and I would like to announce that we will be very determined to notice any violation of the law every time we find that we have crossed the line of expression in a civilized, authorized and legal way. I have called for rigor in law enforcement, transparency and exigency on behalf of all the structures in the ministry that have competence in the sphere of public order," Carmen Dan told a press conference.
She pointed out that in this election campaign there are parties and political parties that support "for show, the democratic values, but do not play fair, trying to limit the right of others to express themselves, obviously encouraging verbal violence."
According to her, groups of activists try to prevent PSD (Social Democratic Party, major at rule, ed.n.) sympathizers, as it happened in Galati and Iasi, from carrying out campaign activities.
"I might even say that if we conduct an analysis, we will find that there have been no cases since the '90s where we came across the demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in the same place. And this fact was also considered by the legislator when deciding upon the organisation of these public gatherings. I would like to make an appeal, to raise the awareness of those who think that this is how they can express themselves, that from verbal violence to physical violence there is just one step, and we have no intention, in any way, to encourage this under any circumstance," said Carmen Dan.
Thus, the Interior minister brought to mind the law of public demonstrations which sets out very clearly the banning of simultaneous manifestations in order to avoid violence.
"Currently, the police and gendarmerie structures, those that intervened, are conducting a serious assessment, are looking at images and are identifying people so as to be able to carry out what is stipulated in the criminal code, included. They will follow the legal approach to take notice ex-officio, to notify the competent prosecutor's office because I think it is obvious to everyone that they have crossed the line of misdemeanor into the criminal one. I would also like to assure you that the Romanian Gendarmerie will allow every political party to carry out its electoral campaign within the constraints of the law," the minister said.
Carmen Dan had a working meeting in Oradea on Tuesday, with the heads of the subordinated inspectorates, analyzing the operative situation in the first months of the year and the results of the measures that have been disposed. At the end of the working meeting, Carmen Dan held a press conference.
