BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Romanians are demanding more democracy at an anti-government march to commemorate the victims of the country’s 1989 anti-communist revolt.
Protesters gathered Saturday outside government offices in Bucharest carrying candles and Romanian flags before marching to Revolution Square, where late Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu fled in a helicopter as crowds demanded his ouster.
The demonstrators chanted “We don’t want to be governed by thieves!” demanding that Romania’s Social Democratic government scrap a plan to grant amnesty to those convicted of corruption.
Oana Solomon told The Associated Press: “People died in 1989 because they wanted Romania to be free … we don’t want to go back to those days.”
Some 1,104 people died during the 1989 uprising that toppled Ceausescu. He was executed with his wife Elena after a summary trial on Christmas Day.
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