Romania to Release 42 Activists Held Since Crackdown in June

The government Friday announced that it will free 42 anti-government activists arrested during the violence in Bucharest in mid-June, when police suppressed a 53-day opposition demonstration.

The prosecutor-general’s office said the reason for the “preventive measures” no longer exists. It did not say when the detainees would go free.

The decision follows the release of student leader Marian Munteanu last week after widespread student protests on his behalf.

Among those already released under the announcement was Nica Leon, leader of the Free Democrat Party and one of the rally’s organizers.

Leon, freed Wednesday, said his seven-week detention was a “purely political” punishment resulting from his criticism of President Ion Iliescu and his ruling National Salvation Front.

The detentions drew criticism at home and abroad. Western countries curtailed aid to Romania after thousands of miners summoned by Iliescu terrorized the capital, beating and detaining presumed opponents at will.

Leon, 25, also said he will now try to unite all the opposition parties to counter Iliescu. Iliescu, a former senior Communist Party official, took over in the December revolution that toppled Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Leon described his detention as “miserable and inhuman.” He said he was denied access to newspapers “other than those which speak for the government, and even out of these some articles were cut out.”

Although Leon’s party controls only two seats in Parliament, he has been one of the government’s most strident critics. He was a leader of the lengthy anti-government rally broken up by police June 13.

Prosecutors announced in June that 89 opposition activists arrested then would be tried. Since then, however, Munteanu, Leon and several others were released without further word of legal action.

Leon said he plans to work toward uniting the major opposition parties, the National Liberal and National Peasant, into “an efficient opposition force.”

The opposition parties control about a third of the two-chamber Parliament elected May 20 and dominated by Iliescu’s party. The opposition protesters had demanded that former communists such as Iliescu be banned from politics for 10 years.