Wednesday 14 October 2009

Hunger Strike and Interim Measures

The EU Observer reports today about a hunger strike in Romania, related to the massacres which took place in 1989 during the chaotic days of the fall of the Ceaucescu regime. Teodor Maries, the head of an organisation of family of victims of those days, is in hunger strike in order to put pressure on the Romanian authorities to release the secret service files which could shed more light on what happened precisely twenty years ago and on whom could be held to account. The issue of the massacres has been brought to Strasbourg in a case in which the Court has issued an interim measure. This is what the EU Observer reports:

According to the press office of the Strasbourg-based European court for human rights, the Romanian authorities have a deadline of 30 October to grant Mr Maries access to all the "relevant" files in his case. An emergency procedure, the so-called Rule 39, was applied in his case due to the urgency of Mr Maries' health condition.
I was not yet able to find a press release of the Court itself or any information on its website, but this is certainly a sad and dramatic case to be followed. The full article on EU Observer can be found here.