Romania: Whether any homosexuals have been subjected to prosecution or imprisonment (January 1998 - April 2001)

A report posted in December 1999 on the Website of ACCEPT, a Romanian organization working for gays and lesbians, states:

At present, Romanian public authorities state, in international and domestic contexts, that article 200 from the Romanian Penal Code is no longer enforced, that gays and lesbians in Romania are not prosecuted anymore, and that there are no more convictions by the Romanian courts in cases regulated by article 200, paragraphs 1 and 5, from the Romanian Penal Code.

As result of this, international organisms such as the Council of Europe and the European Union deleted the issue of discrimination against gay and lesbian people from their agendas concerning human rights in Romania. Also, a part of the Romanian media and lots of Romanian politicians argue that article 200 may remain in the Penal Code, since it has no longer caused the problems that had brought it on international agendas such as the one of Romania's accession to the European Union.

Nevertheless, since the life of gays and lesbians in Romania has not changed much and discrimination against them has just started to take other forms, ACCEPT is committed to document the new cases and to make them known to the general public, to the Romanian authorities and, last, but not least, to international organisms that monitor the human rights development in Romania.

We present below three cases that ACCEPT has learnt about only in the past four months. We all must not forget that these are only the cases of some gay people who had the courage to report what had happened to them. Many others remain silent and dominated by fear. But their stories must be similar to the ones below. ...

All people mentioned below were NOT under 18 at the time of the reported stories. Their identity remains confidential.

1. Bucharest

Two gay men lived together in an apartment rented by one of them. They

regularly had trouble with a neighbour who would complain about mundane neighbour issues such as the volume of the stereo, trash, frequency of his visitors, etc. The neighbour eventually filed an unsigned complaint with the police related to these issues. At the end of his complaint, he added something to the effect that "there is strong reason to believe that there is homosexual activity taking place in the apartment." Upon reading the allegation of "homosexual activity", the police informally telephoned the renter and summoned him to the police department. They proceeded to ask him questions about each of the allegations of the neighbour, including the allegation of homosexuality. Ultimately, they asked the renter to sign a written statement. Although the written statement did not confirm that he had a homosexual relationship, it did state that his boyfriend was a good friend and frequent visitor to the apartment, which could certainly be used in court to substantiate a case of homosexual relations under the "public scandal" law.

The case raises several disturbing issues. First, the police were acting on an unsigned complaint from the neighbour, which is improper if not illegal. Second, the police never issued a written summons to the renter to appear for questioning, but rather used an informal telephone call; again, improper. Third, although the police were not acting on signed complaint, they asked the gay renter to sign a statement admitting the key facts in the case.

(Cased brought to ACCEPT's knowledge by Michael H. - November 1999)

2. Bucharest, August 1999

Two gay men were sitting on a bench in Cismigiu public park of Bucharest in the night, at a time when the park is not populated. One of them is Romanian; the other is a US citizen of Romanian origin. A police patrol passing by asked for their ID cards and questioned them whether they were homosexuals, due to the fact that the two men were sitting very close to one another and that they were not hiding this. They admitted being gay and asked the police whether they had any problem with this. The two men were convinced that article 200 had been abolished from the Penal Code, which they also told the police officers. The police officers informed them that article 200 had not been abolished and that same sex relations were still criminalised in Romania. The police officers took the two gay men to the police station and ordered them to wash the floors. They warned the two gay men that a refuse would lead to forwarding an official report from the Police to the prosecutors who would issue a pre-trial detention order for them. The two gay men were released in the morning, after having to clean the police station the whole night, and after being verbally abused and humiliated.

This case confirms the fact that, although article 200 is no longer present in court decisions, it remains present in the police staff mentality and behaviour.

3. Arad and Cluj-Napoca, September 1999

Two gay men, one from Arad (south-western Transylvania) and the other from Cluj-Napoca (centre of Transylvania), were living as a couple for several months. They were meeting each other regularly, although they were living in relatively distant cities. The Cluj-Napoca guy informed his mother about his sexual orientation and about his love affair with the men from Arad. His mother appealed to a family friend – a Cluj Police colonel – in order to make his son stop seeing his boyfriend. The Cluj colonel phoned the man from Arad and threatened him that, if he did not stop seeing his boyfriend, they both would be arrested by the police. The two men continued seeing each other and, two weeks later, the man from Arad received a written invitation from an Arad police officer, to come to the Arad police department. The man from Arad responded to the invitation, although it was written and not stamped by the police seal. At the police station, he was threatened the same way: that he and his boyfriend would be arrested if they did not stop being gay.

This case illustrates the non official acting of police officers, based on the anti gay personal feelings, and the past anti gay policy of the police as an institution. It also shows the existing network that enables one officer from one city to call on a colleague of his from another city to act in a non official, if not illegal, manner, on a case regulated by article 200 from the Penal Code.

In general, these three cases highlight the fact that the persecution of gays and lesbians in Romania has moved from formal prosecution and imprisonment to informal harassment, which is more difficult to monitor. And, in many respects, the latter is more dangerous to gay people than the former.

A March 2001 International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) reports states:

Hundreds of gay people were imprisoned or held in pre-trial detention in the 1990s [in Romania]. In April 1998, there was nobody in prison solely under Article 200 paragraphs 1 or 5, and since this date there has been no information about any court decision based solely on these two articles. The last person imprisoned under Article 200 paragraph 5 (paragraph 4 at the time) was a lesbian woman, Mariana Cetiner. She was pardoned in respect of the remainder of her sentence by Decree no. 83 of Emil Constantinescu, then President of Romania, on March 18, 2000, having been released from the Aiud Penitentiary on March 25, 1998.

On September 15, 2000, a total of 432 people were in prison under Articles 200 and 201. None of these appears to have been imprisoned solely on paragraphs 1 or 5 of Article 200, but 14 people were in prison in cases involving minors, the age of the minor not being specified in the list provided by the Ministry of Justice, nor violence or the presence or absence of the minor's consent. ACCEPT is endeavouring to find out if among the 14 people there are any who engaged in consenting same-sex relations with young people between 15 and 18; in any such case, if the actions were between persons of the opposite-sex, they would not have been prosecuted (56).

In a 17 May 2001 correspondence with the Research Directorate, the Executive Director of ACCEPT in Budapest stated [in response to the question: Since January 1998, have there been any closed trials (not open to the public) of homosexuals based on article 200 of the penal code and, if so, what were the verdicts rendered in these trials?] that "ACCEPT has no information in that respect." The director also stated:

On February 15, 2001, the Bucharest Military Prosecutors Office adopted a non-indictment decision regarding the non-commissioned police officer accused by Adrian Georgescu of an infringement of the right to private life and of misconduct [Please see the attachment to this Response for ACCEPT'S report on this case]. ACCEPT is preparing the case for submission to the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe.

No additional information on whether homosexuals have been subjected to prosecution or imprisonment in Romania could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

ACCEPT [Bucharest]. 17 May 2001. Correspondence with the executive director.

ACCEPT [Bucharest]. December 1999. "Discrimination Against Gays and Lesbians in Romania Takes New Forms." [Accessed 24 Apr. 2001]

International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), [Brussels]. March 2001. "Equality for Lesbians and Gay Men."

Attachment

ACCEPT, Bucharest. 21 January 2001. "Adrian Georgescu Accuses Non-Commissioned Police Officer of Misconduct and Infringement of His Right to Private Life."

Additional Sources Consulted

IRB databases

NEXIS/LEXIS

Internet sites including:

ACCEPT

American Bar Association - Central and East European Law Initiative

Amnesty International

Balkan Human Rights Web Pages

BBC News Online

International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

International Lesbian and Gay Association

GayLaw Net

OneWorld

Romanian Helsinki Committee

World News Connection

WorldWide GLBT (Gay) News Digest