Police, Demonstrators Clash in Romania : East Bloc: Anger over plans to deport a clergyman explodes into a rare protest against the hard-line regime.

Romanian security forces with tanks and water cannons battled thousands of anti-government demonstrators after police tried to deport a dissident clergyman, the Hungarian news agency and other sources reported Sunday.

It was believed to be one of the largest outbreaks of anti-government demonstrations in at least two years in Romania, where hard-line Communist leaders have crushed dissent and rejected the reforms under way elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

The Hungarian state news agency, MTI, monitored in Vienna, quoted a local Hungarian television reporter in Szeged as saying an eviction order against the Rev. Laszlo Toekes of the Reformed Church in Timisoara was to be carried out Sunday afternoon. Timisoara is in western Romania.

Other sources, however, said the authorities had intended to deport the minister Saturday. Toekes’ fate was not known, MTI said.

MTI said Toekes and his family had been guarded for several days by hundreds of ethnic Hungarians and other Romanian citizens. Toekes has championed ethnic Hungarian rights.

“They tried to prevent the eviction of their clergyman, when hell broke loose and the human chain changed into a demonstration of thousands against (President Nicolae) Ceausescu and his regime,” MTI reported, citing eyewitness accounts.

“Riot police tried to suppress the demonstration, and a bloody brawl started,” the Hungarian report said. “It took almost two hours for the policemen to gain the upper hand.”

The report did not say when the violence broke out, but other sources reported protests both Saturday and Sunday.

MTI, quoting the television reporter in Szeged, said eyewitnesses saw bloodied young people in the streets of Timisoara and that many of the demonstrators were arrested.

However, no number was given for those arrested, and there was no immediate injury total. The Romanian state news agency did not report on the demonstrations.

MTI, quoting travelers returning from Romania, said police used water cannons against the demonstrators. A Czechoslovak citizen was quoted as saying he had seen tanks and blockaded streets.

Earlier, a source at Hungarian television in Budapest told Associated Press that at least 10,000 Romanians had demonstrated Sunday against Ceausescu’s authoritarian rule in Timisoara, about 30 miles from the Romanian border.

The last major demonstration in Romania was believed to have been in November, 1987, when thousands in Brasov protested Ceausescu’s hard-line rule.