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Organized Online, Students Storm Gov't. Buildings In Moldova

Posted by timothy on from the no-emoticon-for-what-I-feel dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Reacting to allegedly fraudulent election procedures, students are storming the presidency and parliament of the small eastern European country of Moldova. It is reported that they used Twitter to organize. Currently twitter and blogs are being used to spread word of what is happening since all national news websites have been blocked. If the 1989 Romanian revolution was the first to be televised, is this the first to be led by twitter and social networks?" Jamie points out this interesting presentation (from March 2008) by Ethan Zuckerman about the realities of online activism, including how governments try to constrain it.

7 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Europe... by hkz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From my time in Moldova with native students, all they want is to join up with the rest of Europe and get the show on the road. They're really frustrated at "the Man". There's the Romanians who don't want to reunite the countries (since Moldova is poorer), the Russians who keep feeding the border conflict with Transnistria (fascinating read about that tin pot narco/weapons state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria ), there's the EU that doesn't even want to consider Moldova as long as there's an unsolved border conflict, there's the communists in power, and so on. Doesn't surprise me much that they're going the same way as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine -- which was much the same circumstances.

    Totally OT: Moldova has the BEST wine and the CRAZIEST Nightclubs. Gotta believe me on that one ;-)

    1. Re:Europe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Doesn't surprise me much that they're going the same way as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine

      What - you mean financed and organised by the US government?

    2. Re:Europe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most Romanians want to reunite with Moldova(and I'm talking here about 99.9%), there are thousands of Moldavians in every major University in Romania, in mine too, we speak the same language and share the same culture and history. We even offered to enter the EU together with Moldova as a single country, which we wore before the USSR ripped it away.

      Let me put this clear for you: Romania and Moldova used to be the same country until WWII, The Republic Moldova is just a part of the historic region of Romania called Moldova(since 1359), a big part of it still lies in Romania. The USSR performed ethnic and cultural clensing there, the comunists even went so far as to trying to forbid the teaching of the Romanian language.

      Since before the ellections, Romanian citizens woren't allowed to enter Moldova, and now Moldovan citizens that are currently in Romania aren't allow to go back into their own country !

      There is probably going to be a millitary intervention this night, since the students even assaulted the national television while the president was there in the studio.

      In Romania we went trough something simillar in 1989, it started in the city I'm studying in, Timisoara. A simillar student protest ended in the millitary shooting in the mass of students and killing not only students but everyone who was on the streets. It was a real horror show troughout the country.

      If something simillar happens in Moldova I can only hope it's going to come to a millitary intervention from Romania or NATO. The revolution in Romania ended with over one thousand dead and thousands wounded, most of which wore students. I really hope other countries won't just stand by and let the same thing happen again. It's only come so far because romanian officialls allways wore big cowards afraid to say anything that would upset their Moldavian counterparts, or anyone else for that matter. If they won't do anything this time eyther, we're going to start protesting in the same manner.

    3. Re:Europe... by gaspyy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      from the way you speak, and the protests your speaking about I assume you are a member of "Noua Dreapta", an ultra-nationalist organization...

      Bullshit!

      Most of what the AC said is true. For any westerner, Moldavia's history is convoluted and here it's not the time or place for history lesson, however, any person in their right mind would agree that the Moldavian is the same as the Romanian language (despite Moldavian-Romanian dictionaries nonsense).

      Also, I have not come across any Romanian who would not support a unification with Moldova; not to mention how Moldova got free electricity from Romania and all sorts of help since their economy is weak.

      On the other hand, I do agree that those with Romanian heritage in Moldavia do not amount to more than 50-60%, so I can understand than many would prefer stronger ties with Russia instead.

  2. The riots of 2005 in France we're powered by blogs by Assoupis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As told in a lot of reports. But the government can't do much when suddenly it's stormed from everywhere, and after days and days of riots, some cop say: "hey I saw a blog that calls for this demonstration that was more like an angry mob !" I even think they didn't manage to close one of those blog. Also the election of 2004 in Spain, which happened three days after the Madrid train bombing, was won by the socialists, even though national TV was continually broadcasting that the ETA made those bombing (the ETA is a left wing basque nationalist group). Manuel Castells, a Spanish sociologist claim that everybody in the country was just SMSing all day for those three days, since it was clear for anyone left wing that it wasn't the ETA: the ETA usually claim their attacks, and do not usually target civilian.

  3. Fax, Internet, Same Thing by QuincyDurant · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Soviet Union was crushed by fax machines. Twitter is just sort of a chickenshit fax machine for people who like to run their mouths.

    BTW, good for the students.

  4. Re:Wow by Yvanhoe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, epic fails in communication have already resulted in major events (skip the first two paragraphs)

    --
    The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.