Anti-Covid Passport Protestors Storm Grounds of Romanian Parliament

Anti-Covid passport protestors broke through a police line to protest in front of the Romanian parliament, entering the building’s courtyard before being stopped by police.

On Tuesday 21st December an estimated 200-300 out of an estimated 2,000 protestors, accompanied by some Romanian politicians, breached the street-facing gates of the Romanian parliament in Bucharest, making it onto the steps of the building before authorities managed to halt them.

It is alleged that two ambassadors as well as some Romanian MPs were trapped by protestors inside the building by the protest, although none of the protestors were able to actually enter the Parliament building.

There have also been claims that some vehicles were damaged, but these allegations were unsubstantiated as of the time of writing.

In a press release, the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated that up to 2,000 people attended the wider protest against coronavirus passports, where mostly maskless individuals were seen waving Romanian flags.

The smaller group of protestors who forced the lock on an access gate, allowing them to gain entry to the parliament’s courtyard, remained there for two hours. After that, it is said, they peacefully withdrew from the area. According to the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs “no force was used”, there was “no physical violence”, and no arrests have been reported.

The police are trying to identify “the persons who are responsible for violating the legal provisions” as the “public assembly” was not “authorised”, however.

The protests follow discussion in the country’s coalition government about mandatory Covid passports in the workplace. The pass, dubbed the “green certificate”, would have been given to those with two vaccinations, those who have recently recovered from infection, and those with a recent negative test.

The proposed bill that would implement these changes is currently at the draft stage and, according to Iulius Marian Firczak, a Romanian MP, “[the bill] hasn’t even made it past the special committees, let alone made it to a vote”.

As a result of the backlash against the “green certificates” the Romanian government has decided to postpone the decision to introduce mandatory Covid passports in the workplace.

Romania has the second-lowest level of vaccination in Europe, with 39.6 per cent of the Romanian population having received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine and just 4.7 per cent have taken a booster, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. This has prompted the coalition to discuss the introduction of vaccine passports to pressure those unwilling to have the vaccine into taking it.

Some media outlets have suggested that the nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians Party, who received 9 per cent of the parliamentary vote in 2020, was involved in the protest.

Romanian MEP Cristian Terheș, representing the Christian Democratic National Peasants’ Party, has been a vocal critic in Romania against the “mandatory EU Digital certificate”, and was a keynote speaker at the thousands-strong “March for Freedom” rally at the EU Parliament in Brussels on the 5th of December.

Terheș was also a lead speaker at the rally outside the Romanian Parliament on the 21st December.

When approached by Breitbart for a comment he said:

“I met people from foreign countries who lost their jobs because they refused to get vaccinated. The whole of Romania is boiling, as Europe is boiling. European countries with more than 80 per cent vaccinated no longer tolerate this tyranny under medical pretext. Can you imagine what it is like in Romania, where the vaccination rate is 40 per cent, many of whom are forced to be vaccinated? I hope that Romanian politicians will come to their senses and stick with the people by not imposing the Digital Green Certificate. History teaches us that all those who turned against the people ended up in the dustbin of history.”

He also noted at the protest that there were priests in attendance: “I was glad to see the priests with the flock, as the national anthem says: ‘Priests leading with their crosses, for the army is Christian, the motto is liberty and its purpose is holy’.”

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