Romanian: people protest against government ‘anti-corruption u-turn’

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Romanian capital to protest against an emergency government decree to decriminalise a string of corruption offences.

“You can’t just publish laws in the night and say shut up, we won the election, and you have no rights. It’s a very dangerous precedent. If this is the kind of procedure they do, we wonder what’s next. It looks like anything is possible,” said Dragos Stanca, 42, a digital media entrepreneur.

In the midst of the demonstration there were burst firecrackers. People threw Molotov cocktails into the police. Radical young people smashed shop windows and advertising design.