March 30 (SeeNews) - Some 5,000 Romanians rallied on Monday evening in seventy cities to protest against restrictions enforced by the government in order to curb the spread of coronavirus infection, data from the ministry of the interior and local media reports showed.
Protests turned violent in Bucharest, where 12 gendarmes were injured and six special intervention vehicles were damaged, the Romanian Gendarmerie said in a press release on Tuesday.
Some 188 people were detained in Bucharest for destruction, disturbance of public order, non-compliance with legal provisions for possessing weapons and ammunition, aggravated theft and unauthorized carrying of dangerous objects.
At the national level, authorities fined 650 protesters with a total 400,000 lei ($96,223/ 81,679 euro) on Monday for participating in illegal demonstrations, violation of the night curfew, not wearing a mask and not keeping the legal required physical distance required by authorities in order to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Local media estimated that some 4,000-5,000 people protested across the country on Monday evening.
The leader of the parliamentary right-wing nationalist party Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) George Simion on Sunday called on Romanians dissatisfied with Covid-19 restrictions to go out and protest all over the country. AUR received 8.7% of the votes for the Chamber of Deputies and 8.8% for the Senate at the December 6 elections.
Last week, Romania's government decided to tighten restrictions on movement and shopping.
A nationwide curfew from 8pm until 5am will be in force and shops will close starting 6pm during Friday-Sunday in areas with more than 4 coronavirus cases per 1,000 inhabitants. In areas where the coronavirus infection rate exceeds 7.5 cases per 1,000 inhabitants, those restrictions will be enforced for the entire week. The restrictions will not apply to pharmacies, petrol stations and providers of delivery services.
On Monday, the Romanian authorities reported 3,825 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total count to 940,443. Of them, 840,127 have recovered. The death toll since the outbreak of the disease has climbed to 23,234, health ministry data showed. Also, a record number of 1,398 coronavirus patients were in the intensive care units.
Romania started its anti-coronavirus vaccination campaign on December 27. So far, 960,683 people have been vaccinated with the first dose, while 1.02 million people have received both doses of coronavirus vaccines.