Why do the abuses still go on?
Although several times Police and Prosecutor’s Office representatives officially said that there are no evidences for investigating the yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru, he is suddenly arrested and accused of having sexual intercourse with a minor of 17 years old, named Dumitru Madalina, on march 29, 2004. This accusation was based on a declaration given by the minor during the raid that took place on March 18, 2004, declaration given under physical and psychical pressure and also prosecutor’s threatening as she has stated. The following day, revolted because of the way she was treated, Dumitru Madalina wrote a complaint at Military Prosecutor’s Office against Romanians prosecutor’s abuses and this complaint canceled the declaration she made on March 18, 2004.
During the next 4 days, the public mediated scandal obviously succeeded in disparaging Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru’s public image and reputation, the spiritual mentor of the Movement of Spiritual Integration in Absolute (MISA). After two days of investigations, the Appeal Court from Bucharest disposed setting Gregorian Bivolaru free. Although the decision had been taken at 17.00, he was set free only at 23.00 same day, in the mean time he was moved by the gendarmes, wearing hand-cuffs, from The Appeal Court to the Court of Law of district no 5 then to Penal Investigations Department, then back to Court of Law of district no 5, all of these confusing the journalists, the public and his lawyers.
This is how we could describe the atmosphere of the evening of April 1: prosecutors holding on to an already canceled arrest warrant. Prosecutors and SPIR troops guarding a single hand-cuffed man. Rumors, unconfirmed information.
The Appeal Court of Bucharest had canceled the verdict given by The Law Court of Bucharest according to which Gregorian Bivolaru was preventively arrested and disposed setting him free, at 17.00.The instance also decided that the proposal of re-judging the prosecutors’ petition for preventive arrest to be solved by the Court of Law of district no 5. From that moment, Gregorian Bivolaru became again a free person. But, despite all these, although so far everything was legal, Gregorian Bivolaru had been taken by an impressive and unreasonable amount of SPIR and Gendarmes troops to the Law Court of district no 5 for re-judging the proposal for his arrest, still wearing hand-cuffs, one hour and a half later.
In the mean time, at the Law Court building, on Stavropoleus street, lines of gendarmes blocked the access of the cars and people passing by had to show their ids. The press found out that the judging session had begun. No one knew anything about what was happening inside. Suddenly Dan Apostol, one of the lawyers, went out of the Law Court and said to the press that all the magistrates of the Law Court were challenged. Same lawyer also said that, although the prosecutor of the judging session declared Mr. Bivolaru a free person, his client was still wearing hand-cuffs.
Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru had been taken out of the building, still wearing hand-cuffs, and pushed into a police car, few minutes later. He only had time to shout: “I am a free man; this is what the Appeal Court had decided”. All the authority’s cars left the place in a big hurry, leaving lots of questions behind them. A large amount of order troops were used this time, as in the last past days. We cannot miss the fact that such “concentration of forces” has no precedent in Romanian in the last 10 years. Not even the Greek Konstantinos Passaris, found guilty for several crimes and for escaping the prison, did not have such a “treatment”.
When the cars left the place, everyone was wondering: where do they take him? There was no need to take him to the Court for judging the petition for challenge, as his presence there was not compulsory. So, they could only take him to the Penal Investigations Department, the place for presumptive arrest. All the Press went there, together with lots of yoga practitioners, revolted by the abusive ways the authorities were using against the yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru.
The rumor that Mr. Bivolaru was inside the Penal Investigation Department (D.C.P.) was confirmed. After that ….just waiting and rumors. Some said that he won’t be set free because another arrest warrant would be emitted; others said he would be taken to the Court through another door, or that he was no longer in Police’s evidences but only in the Prosecutor’s offices evidences. Some said he would be set free, etc.
Although the lawyer Mihai Rapcea came in front of D.C.P. building with the Appeal Court of Bucharest’s verdict (A.C.B.) according to which his client should be set free, he was not allowed to enter the building for few hours. Although he insisted knocking at the doors, he got no answer, he was completely ignored by the Police stuff and he could not lay down the verdict. “Open the door…I am Gregorian Bivolaru’s attorney and he must be set free according to the paper I want to register. Let me in. You are committing an abuse!” this is what Rapcea shouted. The police men did not react in any way, hurting the value and the legal role of an attorney, with this attitude. Even more, unexplainable, they covered the little window of the front door with a piece of a newspaper where it was written the word “COMPLET”. The lawyer got no answer about the recording of the CAB verdict according to which his client was being set free. The orders were clear: no one was allowed to get in. Even a DCP employee coming to work that night hardly got into the building. After he hit the door so it would open for him, he nervously shouted: “C’mon open the door, let me work!”
During this psychological war from the front door of the DCP doors, on the back doors same “complete” SPIR troops were taking Mr. Bivolaru to the Law Court of District no 5, where they had found that the Bucharest Law Court rejected the petition for challenging the magistrates, written by the lawyers. There were some other rumors that he might be presumptively arrested on the same file, for the same crimes (the penal procedure code does not allow this), or that he would be arrested for other crimes. Here was starting another psychological war. This time the situation was even more tensed, it was the climax of the evening: the moment when we could surely find out if Mr. Bivolaru would be set free or not. There was no information coming out of that building. It was only known from one of the lawyers that the appeal for rejecting the challenge petition was going to be laid down, and that the judging of this appeal should be normally solved in 48 hours. Minutes of waiting passed by. Finally, the yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru went out without hand-cuffs, followed by his lawyer. “I am free” Mr. Bivolaru shouted. At last….
Keeping Madalina prisoner by the prosecutors.
The spiritual mentor of MISA, yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru, denounced the abuses of the authorities, accusing the brutal way that he and the MISA adepts were treated, into an interview accorded to BBC. Madalina Dumitru, the minor which was previously known as Bivolaru’s victim, adopted a similar position. She accused the prosecutors of physical aggression and intimidation and she said she was forced to sign the charges pressed to Gregorian Bivolaru. This problem is quite serious. The fear of setting Gregorian Bivolaru, the spiritual mentor of MISA, free determined the authorities to make a wrong move when they tried to use force and their power of influence, abusively, against the key witness of this case, the minor Madalina Dumitru.
While Mr. Bivolaru was arrested and accused of having sexual intercourse with the minor Madalina Dumitru, on April 1, she presented on her own will at the Prosecutor’s Office, in order to make a supplementary statement that would certify once again the innocence of the yoga teacher, denying any sexual relation with him. She was not allowed to do this.
Using just a “taking in/over” warrant that expired once the minor presented herself at the Prosecutor’s Office, prosecutors acted abusively and forced her to present at the Legal Medicine Institute (IML) for a medical gynecological expertise. After Madalina and her lawyer were transported with a secured police car, followed by few other similar cars full of gendarmes and cops, they entered the IML building and they realized doors were blocked both on the inside and outside by many cops. Madalina felt strongly threatened and she entered into a state of panic and anxiety. She understood she was not just a simple “injured party” as the prosecutors of Bivolaru’s case said, but a real instrument in the hands of those who were using their abilities and abusing by their authority to find defendants and build cases that do not exist. When Madalina Dumitru realized she was being kept prisoner there and she could not go at her will, she refused the expertise and she called her boyfriend Remus Lomos, who could hardly enter the IML building.
At that time, near the Legal Medicine Institute there were many people, some of them having no connection with these events. Those people joined yoga practitioners (friends of Madalina and Remus) who found out about the illegal action and made a spontaneous, non violent meeting, protesting with their hands in the air against this abuse, another one in the last two weeks.
Seeing this reaction after this abuse, cops gave up this idea with the expertise, which was also refused by the doctor on duty. In that moment Madalina was dragged by the hair and taken out by the cops, using the back door of the Institute. Her lawyer was also violently pushed and hit her head by a car.
The people gathered in front of the IML non violently, protesting against the abusive ‘take in’ of Madalina by the Prosecutor’s Office troops. They shouted slogans as: “Freedom”, “No violence”, “Madalina”. At a given moment the Gendarmerie and SPIR troops started being physically violent, especially with those who strongly shouted for Madalina’s freedom. The people were violently forced to spread, many of them being physically aggressed. One of the people who was violently aggressed was taken to the hospital being into a state of coma.
The lawyer Mihai Rapcea together with 25 people were dragged into one of the gendarmeries car and taken to Police Section no 15 where they were fined because of the artificial reason they organized an unauthorized public meeting. It is interesting to find out how the Romanian Police is getting rich, considering that the total amount of the fines given by the Gendarmeries to Madalina’s supporters is about 57 millions lei.
After he personally saw all these incredible aggressive events, Mr. Gabriel Andreescu from APADOR-CH stated: “It is unbelievable how this abuse of the authorities happened in front of the eyes of the people!” It seems like the abuses of the Police and General Prosecutor’s Office have no limits, considering nothing but their own interests.
Today, April 4, the minor Madalina is still missing. After her friends said that Thursday evening she was being kept prisoner by the prosecutors in the Prosecutor’s Office building, we had no other news about her. According to some sources related to the judiciary system, the girl should have deposited the marriage papers with her boyfriend Remus, today. Her mother would have wanted to contact her daughter but some stuff from the Prosecutor’s Office told her: “she is psychically unstable, and we must keep her under surveillance”. Did the Prosecutor’s Office become a specialized institution for mental illness, meanwhile? Another questions showed up again…
Ioan Talpes, the ex-security-problems Councilor of Romanian President, Ioan Iliescu, considers that the Bivolaru-MISA’s case “a show put by mass media on a mined field.” He thinks there is an interest of bringing on this subject as public debate, but he could not specify who would have such an interest. “I don’t have any information about MISA”
Still, why so many abuses?
Gregorian Bivolaru, the spiritual mentor of MISA, stated about the raids from March: “When this investigation had started, the ones who came and made the raid at my home did not invited me, but broke my door with a pick, they did the raid in my absence, and while this raid was taking place I was invited at the Police Department from my neighborhood for an id check, as they said. Then my apartment was devastated and brought into a terrible state. We would be very happy if these abuses will stop once for all and those who practice yoga in Romania to be able to practice it in peace.”
When he was asked if he would sue the Prosecutor’s office, Police and the stuff from the Nadlac custom house, Bivolaru had an amazing answer: “No, I would not do this because I have a human attitude, I understand them, maybe they were taken over by enthusiasm. (…) Of course I want to defend myself, I even asked for lawyer’s defense, but despite all these, I don’t want to revenge on those people, because maybe in some certain situations their ignorance and their over-enthusiasm determined them to act as they did.”
