‘Culture of Secrets’ Threatens Romania’s Thriving Free Press

A feisty free press has been one of Romania’s key accomplishments since the bloody 1989 overthrow of Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, who ran a secretive and brutal dictatorship.

But old habits sometimes die hard in formerly Communist countries. Eliminating censorship here was relatively easy, but building a society and a government that respect the public’s “right to know” is proving to be a bigger challenge.

A proposed state secrets law now threatens to chill reporters’ access to information in ways that could undercut the still-fragile foundations of democracy here, according to many worried journalists and some sympathetic politicians who are fighting to defeat the bill.

“It’s a very dangerous project that will limit freedom of expression [and the] fundamental rights of human beings and will hurt democracy,” said Cornel Nistorescu, editor in chief of Evenimentul Zilei, a leading Romanian newspaper. “According to this law, I would have to think what I can say to you and what I cannot say to you, because something could be considered a state secret and I could be penalized.”

Critics of the proposed law complain that it would allow officials to make too many things secret too easily, that it does not define what should be a secret and that it would make all citizens responsible to protect secrets regardless of how they obtained the information or even whether they knew it was considered secret.

“The law is starting from the idea of the good state,” said Ioana Avadani, executive director of the Center for Independent Journalism in Bucharest, the capital. “But what if I find my state is producing chemical weapons?”

The proposed law is “a fruit of Communist thinking” that survives in the ruling and opposition parties, Nistorescu said. For example, the law lacks democratic safeguards with regard to assessing guilt; instead, “the state secret service could investigate and act as a prosecutor,” he said.

Romania has “no culture of transparency,” said Sen. Eugen Vasiliu, a key opponent of the bill who is head of the Senate’s committee on culture, arts and media. “It’s a culture of secrets. Fifty years of communism convinced people that secrets are a good and sacred thing.”

Mihai Gheorghiu, a member of the lower house of Parliament and a critic of the proposed law in its current form, said the best solution would be for Parliament to pass a freedom of information act and a state secrets law. But it is far from certain that this will happen, he said.

And while Vasiliu is a strong supporter of journalists in their fight against the proposed law, he also blasted some publications for allegedly blackmailing politicians.

“Some papers came to speak to politicians,” Vasiliu said, “and told them: ‘You may pay us to print your advertisements in the campaign. You can pay us to talk only about your party and candidates. But if you don’t pay us, not a single word will be printed in our paper. Also, you must pay us to not write bad things about you. We are ready to destroy you if you don’t pay.’ ”

Romania already has strong laws against libel, including the threat of prison. But that opens up another problem, with many journalists charging that libel suits are abused to frighten reporters away from publishing unfavorable information about politicians and corrupt businesspeople.

“When you see that your colleague went to jail or had to pay a huge fine for what they wrote . . . you may think twice before writing something similar,” Avadani said. “It is more an insidious threat. It leads to self-censorship, which is probably as bad as imposed censorship.”