Finnish parliamentary support for Gregorian Bivolaru

Malmö Tingsrätt                                                                                                                        Helsingfors 21.4.2005



Svenska Justitsieministeriet
Högsta Rätt

Regarding the possible extradition of the yoga teacher and system critics Gregorian Bivolaru

The District Court of Malmoe, the Swedish Justice Department and the Swedish Supreme Court are currently dealing with an extradition case concerning the Romanian yoga teacher and asylum seeker Gregorian Bivolaru. The Romanian authorities have requested an extradition of the asylum seeker to be tried by Romanian law.

We appeal to the Swedish authorities not to give in to that demand, because the conditions for a fair trial to happen doesn’t seem to be fulfilled.

According to the material we have seen, the chances for Gregorian Bivolaru to become a victim of political persecution if extradated to Romania seem very high. There are signs given that the Romanian state will not live up to the criterions for a fair and objective trial when it comes to the case of Gregorian Bivolaru.

Even though Romania has made progress in terms of living up to human rights in connection to the EU-application proces, the incidents in this case show that there are still leftovers from the communist regime which is persecuting political opponents and system critics. Gregorian Bivolaru is one of those people that seems to be suffering under this.

The case about extradation of Gregorian Bivolaru is happening at the same time as the person is applying for aylum. It can seem politically contradictory to give political asylum to a person from an EU-applicant country since it would point out Romania as a society that is persecuting political opponents.

We have had a similar case in Finland in connection to asylum applicants from Romania. The incidents has shown us that we need to stay with a critical point of view even when it comes to the internal problems with human rights in the EU-countries. Freedom and fairness are not selfgiven in the EU either.

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