Romanian prosecutors try to find over 100 victims of the 1990 miners’ riot

Romania's Public Ministry published on its website the photos of over 100 victims of the violent crackdown of the protests in Bucharest in June 1990, who were abusively arrested during the protests. The prosecutors who are investigating the case have asked the population to help them identify those people. These protests are also known as the miners’ riot, as coal miners from Jiului Valley in Romania came to Bucharest and started beating the protesters, helping the law enforcement forces disperse the crowd. "So far, after checking the data included in the records of the units where these people were held, as well as the photos taken at the moment of the arrest, the identification was not possible in all cases because some of these people declared some data that didn’t belong to them or don’t have correspondent in the People’s Records database," reads the Public Ministry’s statement. The institution also mentions that, in the case of more than 100 people arrested on June 13-15, 1990, in Universitatii Square in Bucharest, there aren't enough information as the photo albums only contain their names. Thus, although the military prosecutors carried out several checks, they failed to identify all the persons injured in the events that took place in Bucharest on June 13-15, 1990. The pictures can be found here, and those who have information on any of these people can announce the Public Ministry in 30 days. The miners’ riot case is one of the most important cases in Romania that are still unsolved. According to the prosecutors investigating the case, four people were shot dead, three others were injured by gun shots, and over 1,200 were physically and mentally abused and abusively arrested. The Supreme Court decided to reopen this case in the spring of 2015. Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu and former Prime Minister Petre Roman are two of the people who will stand trial for crimes against humanity. Ion Iliescu is accused of having called the miners to Bucharest to go against the protesters. The former President thanked the miners after the protests were suppressed. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (Photo source: Mineriada.org)