Gendarmes discipline for jokes with sexual tint made with women detained at the Pride march: “Do we have four girls in the van, do we go to sea?”
Four women, including a journalist, were raised by the gendarmes and taken to the section on the day of the Pride march that took place in Bucharest, after tear sprays were found on them. According to the young people, the gendarmes had inadequate behavior and made several jokes with sexual tint towards them: “Do we have four girls in the van, are we going to sea?”, they were joking between them.
The Bucharest Gendarmerie has initiated an internal investigation. Photo: Archive
The case was reported by one of the women, the journalist Renata Mogîldea from Pressone, who participated in the march for documentation. She explained that she had a pepper spray on her self-defense spray, invoking the fact that she had received death threats following the publication.
“It is fear that causes us to carry on additional protection. Not bravada, not the intention to disturb the order or to” install “, only the acute need for protection makes us carry on us a pepper spray. It is a decision that a woman in Romania makes in a climate in which we have been demonstrated, repeatedly, that the protective bodies reach too late to prevent an act of gender violence or do not act at all ”, wrote the journalist, who also told about the behavior of the gendarmes during the detention.
She reported that she was raised by four gendarmes and taken with a van at the Police Section 17. In the car, it also met the other women, in the same situation. On the way to the section, she says, several gendarmes would have made jokes with sexual tint towards them.
“One of the gendarmes, younger, nicknamed the” Armenian “, begins to unbipe, to get his protective vest and, visibly relaxed, makes a joke to colleagues, then looks at us:” Well, now we are in the car … “, he says, with a smile to the four fellow men. Revolved, I ask sharply – “Now that we are in the car, what?”. He wipes his smile off his face and in a high tone he orders me to close my phone. Duba starts and we go to the section ”, notes Pressone.
The reaction of the Bucharest Gendarmerie
Three young people from the present complained the behavior of the gendarmes. Following the complaints filed, the Bucharest Gendarmerie started an internal investigation, concluded with the sanction of six employees for inappropriate behavior.
“According to the findings of the verification commission, six gendarmes were found guilty and were disciplined. We emphasize that in accordance with the internal legal provisions of the institution, these disciplinary sanctions also attract the loss of financial rights for a certain period”, transmitted the General Gendarmes Directorate of the Municipality of Bucharest in a press information.
