Icelanders To Hold Solidarity Protest With Romanians Today

A snap protest will be held in front of the Icelandic parliament today in solidarity with the thousands of Romanians who have been protesting against government corruption in their own country over the past two weeks now.

Gabriela Rădulescu, one of the organisers of the event along with Claudiu Eduard Nedelciu, told Grapevine that the protests currently going on in Romania have some resonance with Iceland, as the Romanian protests are in many ways inspired by protests that erupted in Iceland last April over the Panama Papers scandal.

“There was one post on Facebook which actually said that the protest now is ‘Icelandic style’,” Gabriela told us. “This is a new thing that has been growing gradually in Romania over the last few years; that people have taken the streets in Romania, developing a sense of empowerment and a culture of protest.”

For the unfamiliar, the month-old cabinet of Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu recently issued an emergency decree that effectively nullified a number of corruption and graft charges against Romanian politicians. This, in turn, has sparked massive protests in this country, and solidarity protests have been popping up around the world.

Iceland’s own solidarity protest with Romania begins at 17:00 today at Austurvöllur, the square in front of Parliament.