Romania: Repeal Article 200 Now

10/08/2000

IGLHRC forwards the following call for action, initiated by the Romanian gay organization ACCEPT and by the International Gay and Lesbian Association--Europe. The call asks for letters to members of the Romanian Senate, which is considering a criminal code revision which would repeal Romania's notorious Article 200, a law penalizing homosexual acts "which cause public scandal" with 1-5 years' imprisonment. A sample letter follows at the end of this action.

The campaign to repeal Article 200 has lasted for nearly a decade. (For detailed information and an account of human rights violations in Romania, see the report, Public Scandals: Sexual Orientation and Criminal Law in Romania, published by IGLHRC and Human Rights Watch, see ~~http://www.iglhrc.org/publications/books/index.html#publicScandals~~ and http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports97/romania/) The Romanian government has for far too long offered nothing but empty promises that a commitment to equality and to human dignity will someday be made real. Those debts are long past due. Demand action by the Romanian Senate NOW.

FORWARDED ACTION FROM ILGA-EUROPE

We call on you to support ACCEPT's campaign to abolish article 200 which criminalises hundreds of thousands of Romanian women and men, just because they are gay. The actual manner in which you can intervene in order to acknowledge lesbian and gay rights is to send the following message to the Romanian Senators, as they are the ones who will decide whether to eliminate or keep the article 200.

FROM ACCEPT, THE ROMANIAN GAY AND LESBIAN ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION:

Dear Friend,

We have the honour to write to you on behalf of ACCEPT, the main Romanian organisation working for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals.

Romania is an European country where homosexuality is incriminated by article 200 from the Penal Code. Lesbians and gays who live here are constantly subjected to discrimination, stigmatisation, and humiliation.

These days, the press is broadly covering the aggressive crusade initiated by the Romanian Orthodox Church against homosexuality and its pressure upon the laic institutions, just when the Senate is expected to vote with regard to repealing article 200. The forthcoming vote of the Senate is decisive, though the Chamber of Deputies repealed article 200 in June, and, recently, the Government issued the Ordinance on preventing and punishing all forms of discrimination, including the one based on sexual orientation.

For further details, please check our web-site at http://accept.ong.ro.

On behalf of the Romanian lesbian and gay people, who will continue to believe in human rights unconditionally, we thank you for your support.

Yours sincerely,

Florin Buhuceanu
President of ACCEPT

Adrian Coman
Executive Director of ACCEPT

For your convenience, below please find Romanian Senators' Email addresses and fax numbers, and a sample letter requesting repeal of anti-gay Article 200.

RECIPIENTS' names, EMAIL Address, titles, & fax numbers:

MIRCEA IONESCU-QUINTUS Chairman of the Romanian Senate: mionescuquintus@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-312.03.79
ION ILIESCU Leader of the Senate Group of the Party for the Social Democracy in Romania: pdsr@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-312.37.36
GEORGE ACHIM Leader of the Senate Group of the National Christian Democratic Peasant Party: pntcd@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-311.16.20
CRISTIAN DUMITRESCU Leader of the Senate Group of the Democrat Party: cdumitrescu@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1- 310.02.50
VERESTOY ATTILA Leader of the Senate Group of the Romanian Magyars' Democrat Union: verestoy@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-311.06.83
CORNELIU VADIM TUDOR Leader of the Senate Group of the Greater Romania Party: prm@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-312.10.22
VASILE DOBRESCU Leader of the Senate Group of the Romanian National Unity Party: punr@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-311.06.42; PAUL PACURARU
Leader of the Senate Group of the National Liberal Party; +40-1-311.07.48
PPACURARU@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-311.07.48
RODICA STANOIU Chairwoman of the Human Rights Committee within the Romanian Senate: rstanoiu@unix1.senat.ro
+40-1-312-32.97

SAMPLE LETTER

Senator,

Your vote in favour of abolishing article 200 will ensure: equality for all Romanian citizens in their individual rights and freedoms; equal judicial treatment with the same sanctions for the same crimes; strengthening Romanian democracy through assimilating diversity via equal opportunity,
acceptance, reconciliation, and social peace for a historically maligned minority;
and a historic moral and political step forward for modern Romania in complying with Romania's commitments to international organizations. We call on you to support the immediate elimination of Article 200 from Romania's penal code.

Sincerely,