LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:  Status of Romania's libel law and limits on press freedom must be scrutinised by the EU

Sir,

The letter from Alexandru Farcas, the Romanian minister of European integration (February 25), contains several factual errors and misrepresentations.

He writes: "The Romanian Press Club praised the recent removal of jail sentences for calumny [libel] and insult by way of press from the penal code." What the minister neglects to tell us is that the new penal code is not yet in force, being merely at the committee stage in parliament.

Further, while the draft code does indeed remove jail sentences and contains other positive changes such as the repeal of insult, the September 2003 report of the Romanian Helsinki committee (Apador) drew attention to numerous deficiencies. For example, it points out that libel remains a criminal offence with very high fines that will continue to apply to journalists convicted of libel, "which can easily reach levels disproportionate to journalists' incomes leading to self-censorship and by implication to the limiting of editorial freedom".

Apador has called for libel to be removed from the penal code and made into a civil offence, as is the case in most democratic countries. Maintaining such a criminal offence also contradicts Council of Europe Resolution 1123 (1997) on the honouring of obligations and commitments by Romania (Point 9), as well as the commitments that Romania undertook to the US Congress's Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe - the Helsinki Commission.

Mr Farcas refers to his government's condemnation of violence against journalists. Adrian Nastase, prime minister, did condemn the severe beating last December of Ino Ardelean, the Timisoara-based journalist, but only three weeks after the event and only after Michael Guest, US ambassador, had spoken out.

In 2003 there were at least 16 attacks on journalists, none of which led to any arrests, according to the Romanian Media Monitoring Agency, a human rights group that works for press freedom. Mr Farcas should give some specific examples to back up his statement that "aggressors have been taken into custody". In fact, Ioan Roib, Timisoara police inspector, declared on February 24 that the Ardelean beating (which necessitated 55 days' medical treatment) was "not sufficiently grave" as to require preventive arrest of suspects.

Press freedom is being further threatened by an amendment to the new penal code, approved on February 12 (according to press reports) by the Chamber of Deputies committee on judicial affairs, which could impose jail sentences of one to three years for, among other things, taking pictures of private homes without the owner's consent. This has been widely criticised since it most likely will result in the impeding of investigative reporting on the wealth of public officials.

In the light of the approaching debate in the plenary session of the European parliament on the recent highly critical report issued by its foreign affairs committee on Romania's progress towards EU accession, we feel that misinforming the public is not the correct strategy to use in addressing the grave concerns expressed in this report.

We hope the European parliament will look into these issues as a matter of urgency - and specifically request an official position from Mr Farcas on the current status of the libel issue and the other proposed measures to limit press freedom. Mark Percival, Managing Director Daniel F. Visoiu, Founder Member Romania Think Tank, Sector 5, Bucharest, Romania