Civil society takes stand on "Securitate practices"

New organizations representing the Romanian civil society took stand on recent political moves over the leadership of the country’s intelligence services with an appeal to President Traian Basescu and other officials to reconsider the nomination of a controversial figure at the helm of the Romanian Intelligence Service-SRI.

The Coalition for a Clean Government-CGC umbrella-group said the nomination of George Maior at the helm of SRI “will not restore public trust in the intelligence services and suggested that the move may prolong SRI activities reminiscent of the practices of the Securitate, the dreaded political police of the ex-communist regime.

Maior is a representative of the opposition Social-Democratic Party-PSD, which governed the country in 2000-2004 and to which Romanian-Syrian businessman Omar Hayssam, a fugitive placed under terrorism charges, belonged to.

And the CGC asked the current authorities in Bucharest to check what happened with the content of the archives of the Securitate in the past 16 years.

For the first time after the December 1989 revolution, these files, which include data on current politicians thought to have been involved in political police activities during the communist regime, were dugged into consistently over the past several months.

HotNews.ro, Sep 28, 2006