As protests in Romania enter their second week, workers are facing increased pressure and threats from the ruling elite.
The first demonstrations were triggered by the forced resignation of Dr. Arafat, a member of government who had publicly opposed a health care bill that would privatise the Romanian public health system. President Traian Basescu, who personally championed the bill, quickly tried to ease tensions by withdrawing it on Friday, January 13, the first day that demonstrators gathered in Bucharest to protest outside the Presidential Palace.
On Saturday, more people tried to reach the Presidential Palace but were met with large numbers of riot police. Demonstrators then gathered in the center of Bucharest, in University Square, where police charged several times with tear gas and batons into a crowd with many children and large numbers of elderly.
Sunday saw the greatest use of force by the Romanian state since 1998, when paramilitary police were used to prevent striking miners from demonstrating in the capital, Bucharest. Even though the protest started peacefully, large numbers of riot police tried to forcefully break it up. Police forces then redeployed to prevent another group of protesters coming from nearby Unirii Square from joining with the main demonstration in University Square......
On Monday, the Government again tried to resolve the situation by reinstating Dr. Arafat. This however did nothing to prevent the demonstrations, as people were by now demanding the resignation of the president and the government, which has repeatedly imposed tough austerity measures in recent years.
On Thursday, when a record number of people occupied University Square, police again dispersed protesters by force, sweeping the side streets, beating and hauling protesters into vans. Although the demonstrations were peaceful, police constantly sought to provoke the crowds. The press filmed and identified members of the Gendarmerie, the Romanian paramilitary police force, as well as thugs with known links to UNPR (National Union for the Progress of Romania), a member of the ruling coalition, at the demonstrations.
The main opposition parties, the Social Democrats and the pro-market National Liberals, who have formed the Social-Liberal Union, reacted to the protests with fear. They did not defend demonstrators against police violence and, through the voice of Liberal leader Crin Antonescu, claimed that riot police and protesters are “equal victims.” He made token calls for early elections. Antonescu called for “violent” protesters to be “identified and punished with maximum severity.”.......
The opposition press has also run an aggressive campaign attacking demonstrators as “football hooligans,” claiming that the police did not act strong enough. They responded to the people’s denunciations of both political parties and to the booing of a prominent Liberal senator in the square by claiming that the protesters are agitators and supporters of President Traian Basescu.
The opposition press has also stepped up its yearlong campaign in support of the deposed former king of Romania, the 90-year-old Mihai I, and his conflict-ridden royal family.
The opposition is linked to the many petty-bourgeois groups active in University Square: various ecology groups, feminists, animal rights groups, and a host of anti-communist NGOs that try to make a comparison between current events and those in Bucharest in the early 1990s—when a power struggle erupted between a layer of former Stalinist bureaucrats and more right-wing parties and former dissidents..........
Three hundred teachers took part in the demonstrations in University Square on Friday, January 20, and again on Saturday, and calls were made for a general strike. Marius Nistor, a prominent union leader, declared, however, that he cannot put young teachers on strike because it would break their “work continuity”.
The demonstrations in Bucharest and other cities in Romania have been limited in numbers, a few thousand people at any one time, yet they were met with the full weight of the capitalist state. Often, riot police greatly outnumbered protesters, and there were press reports of teachers and students in dorms been threatened against participating in the protests. A prominent leader of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party, Radu Berceanu, threateningly declared that he could easily “gather 10,000 people” for a counter-demonstration, with only “a few phone calls”.

Romania protests: Photo with gendarme holding heart-shaped balloon in front of his shield goes viral on the Internet
January 22, 2012
Posted by foxcrawl at 10:43 pm

Romania entered the 10th day of street protests with demonstrators across the country chanting against the government, president and all politicians (either leading or opposition).
Dozens of photographs were taken during the turmoil, however some of them turned out to be quite emotional as revealed the human side of those involved in clashes.

Some pictures taken at Bucharest’s “University Square” featuring a gendarme (part of riot police) holding a heart-shaped balloon along with his protective shield, became popular ​​around the world.

Picasso Moon wrote:One wonders what the message is. It could be very positive. Or it could be "I beat you up out of love."

russshackleford wrote:ಠ_ಠ

About
ಠ_ಠ, otherwise known as the “look of disapproval,” is a character sequence commonly used as a reaction emoticon to express one’s disapproval or disbelief.

Origin
The unicode character “ಠ” comes from the letter “ṭha” in Kannada, one of the major Dravidian languages of India that is influenced by Sanskrit. Despite its origin, the character has been used as an emoticon primarily outside of India. According to Lurkmore Wiki, the earliest use of ಠ_ಠ began on the Japanese imageboard site 2channel and eventually spread across other languages, most notably on 4chan.