World human rights report criticizes Romania on political crisis, secret CIA prisons and Roma rights

The political row in Romania last year, denial of CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Roma rights are the main issues tackled by the most recent World Report from Human Rights Watch. Last year in Romania “A political crisis between the president and prime minister led the government to take steps that undermined separation of powers and the rule of law,” states the World Report 2013 from Human Rights Watch. The report details actions taken by the Social Liberal Union government after May last year, which included stripping the Constitutional Court of its powers to overrule parliament, replacing the ombudsman with a party stooge and taking over control of the Official Gazette to delay Constitutional Court ruling from coming into effect. (in picture, main politicians involved in political row last year) The political crisis and resulting response from the European Commissions hogged headlines last summer, but it wasn't Romania's only human rights black mark in the 2013 report. Human Rights Watch called attention to the ongoing denials that US intelligence agency, the CIA, ran secret prisons in Romania. The report claims that despite media investigations by the Associated Press, German public television ARD, Panorama, and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Romanian authorities refused to admit that there had been a secret prison in Bucharest where the CIA had detained and interrogated suspects. Roma rights were also flagged up in the 2013 report as worrying and gave a specific example of human rights transgressions by the authorities against members of the ethnic Roma population. “Approximately 150 Roma were forcibly evicted in June from informal settlements in Baia Mare, northwestern Romania, and relocated to a former chemical plant without adequate accommodation or sanitation,” reads the Human Rights Watch report. Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com