In the last 2 weeks, the Romanian government took measures to tackle the coronavirus emergency. However, in addition to limiting citizens’ freedom of movement, the government decided also to limit the circulation of information on the coronavirus crisis.
From March 21st until April 3rd, when amidst protests the government took the decision to restore at least counties’ authorization, neither prefects nor counties were allowed to diffuse information regarding the number of Covid-19 tests carried out, deaths, positive people and their conditions. They were only supposed to provide information on public order measures to tackle the emergency and on the creation of locations for quarantine.
Accordingly, only the Interior Minister and the Group for Strategic Communication (GSC) could provide coronavirus related information to citizens, usually to inform them on the introduction of new measures to contain the outbreak and on the number of positive and dead people. However, such numbers take into account total cases in the whole nation, not in single counties, without providing useful aggregated statistical information to have a clear picture of the situation.
Furthermore, such “informative sessions” are usually press conferences with no possibility for journalists to ask questions, and journalists are also obligated to disseminate such information through the original wording used by authorities. Also, the GSC announced that it will be monitoring the circulation of fake news and will act to remove them. In fact, an online newspaper has already been shut down.
In this context, a number of civic organizations and citizens loudly criticized the government’s approach limiting citizens’ right to information and journalists’ freedom of speech. In fact, a petition has been circulating on the internet and 14 civic organizations, led by geo-spatial.org, launched a manifesto calling upon authorities to publish complete data on the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Romanian territory in order to let civil actors bring their own contribution.
***Vasile Craciunescu, one of the promoters of the Manifesto is among the supporters of EU CAN DO IT – the Petition to the European Parliament to address Covid19, social, economic, and climate crises.