High level politicians demand EUR 0.5 mln from Romanian website over satire article

Five women, four of whom are politicians with high level functions in the state, are demanding moral damages of EUR 0.5 million from a Romanian satire website. Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila (picture, right), Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea (picture, left), Interior Minister Carmen Dan, Labour Minister Lia Olguta Vasilescu and Irina Tanase, the girlfriend of Romanian ruling party leader Liviu Dragnea, have sued the Romanian satire website TimesNewRoman.ro. The site published in March an article titled “Dragnea’s bitch”, which the five women, all members of the ruling Social Democrat Party, deemed discriminating against women in politics. The article referred to Dragnea’s girlfriend, after she attended the PSD congress where she sat in the first row, together with the other four women politicians. In their court reasoning, they say the three ministers and the Bucharest mayor were offended and felt directly targeted by an expression used in the article: “the hoard of stupid women who hold high functions in the party”. The Council for Combatting Discrimination already fined the publication with some EUR 3,500 for this article. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Gabriela Firea on Facebook)