Message of support from Emilia Șercan from the Faculty of Journalism, after the PSD attacks: “Incitement to hatred can degenerate”

The Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the University of Bucharest (FJSC) shows its “full support” towards the journalist Emilia Șercan, lecturer at the faculty, in the context in which she was attacked by PSD representatives, after Șercan published in PressOne an analysis of the doctoral thesis of the Minister of Justice, Radu Marinescu, which shows that more than half of the thesis was plagiarized.

FJSC “asks political actors and citizens to show responsibility and to refrain from any form of incitement to hatred and aggression. Attempts to discredit journalists are incompatible with the values ​​of the rule of law”, reads the press release of the Faculty of Journalism of the University of Bucharest.

The faculty notes that attacks on the press have reached an unprecedented level even in democratic societies, and the widespread use of social networks has led to the propagation of threatening or hateful messages, including against journalists.

FJSC: “The safety of journalists must be an absolute priority”

“Incitement to hatred can degenerate into serious forms of aggression and harassment at any time. The pressures, threats and attempts to discredit journalists who do their job honestly undermine the foundations of a democratic society, therefore the safety of journalists must be an absolute priority for public institutions and for democratically elected leaders,” says the statement signed by Bogdan Oprea, director of the Journalism Department at FJSC.

Oprea claims that complaints of plagiarism should be fought only with scientific arguments, not with personal attacks.

“The FJSC also notes the fact, often insufficiently presented publicly in such moments that concerns university lecturer Dr. Emilia Șercan, that her journalistic articles regarding plagiarism cases targeted people from the entire political spectrum, as well as people from non-political public authority institutions,” the cited source mentions.

“The Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences remains firmly committed to the defense of the freedom of the press, the right to information and democratic values, without which no free society can exist. FJSC supports the academic and journalistic activity of university lecturer Dr. Emilia Șercan carried out in the service of the public interest, transparency and a clean, integral and responsible academic environment”, the statement also says.

Journalist Emilia Șercan, who revealed on Monday that the Justice Minister's doctoral thesis in Law is massively plagiarized, explained why she verified Radu Marinescu, stating that her intuition and experience of over ten years in verifying ministers' doctoral theses tell her that “Radu Marinescu's doctoral thesis is completely plagiarized”.

“The Minister of Justice, Radu Marinescu, plagiarized 140 of the 247 pages of his doctoral thesis, i.e. 56.68%, i.e. more than half. The thesis is in Law, Radu Marinescu is the Minister of Justice, and justice means fairness, equity, legality”, writes investigative journalist Emilia Șercan, in a message posted on Facebook.

PSD: “She herself is an impostor”

The PSD sent a press release a few hours after the journalist Emilia Șercan published the analysis of the doctoral thesis of the Minister of Justice, with the title “The system of means of evidence in the civil process”.

The Social Democrats say they will continue to support the Minister of Justice “without reservations” and “condemn the vile maneuver by which he was accused of plagiarism, immediately after he announced that the appointments of the heads of the high-ranking prosecutor's offices will not be of a political nature.”

The PSD accuses a political attack aimed at the dismissal of the minister.

“If the approach had been in good faith, the accusations against the minister would have been formulated at the time of his appointment to the leadership of the Ministry of Justice, not exactly now when he started the legal procedures for the appointment of the heads of prosecutors, stating that he will not allow political interference!”, says the statement sent by the party.

In addition, the social democrats virulently attack the journalist Emilia Șercan, accusing her of imposture and plagiarism:

“A person cannot substitute himself for the legal institutions of the state and give verdicts that clearly contradict the official rulings of these courts, much less when the person in question is himself an impostor and has plagiarized his own undergraduate work.

As such, the PSD grants Minister Radu Marinescu its full political support for the fulfillment of the mandate and will categorically oppose any attempts of political subordination of Justice”.

In a dialogue with HotNews, the leader of the PSD senators, Daniel Zamfir, stated that the analysis that the journalist Emilia Șercan did on the doctorate thesis of the Minister of Justice is “absolutely obvious an action, an attempt to compromise the minister, precisely because he triggered the procedure for appointing the chief prosecutors”.

“Beyond the fact that he was head of promotion, he has been a minister for a year. If Ms. Şercan was so passionate about researching his lordship's CV and his lordship's doctorate, she could have done it by now. It is not at all accidental that this attempt to compromise appears right now, when the minister has triggered the procedure for appointing prosecutors,” the PSD senator added.