Former Justice Minister and presidential candidate Ana Birchall claims a well-known sociologist sexually harassed her more than a decade ago, challenging Romania to take sex offenses more seriously.
The ex-minister said she was going public after recent sexual harassment claims against another professor went public which stirred up bad memories of her own experience.
The 50-year-old politician vowed to fight for more transparency and accountability in a society where such behavior is still tolerated and covered up.
Mrs Birchall’s claims against Marius Pieleanu, an associate professor and vice-dean of the prestigious Faculty of Political Science, SNSPA, come as Romania grapples with other sex abuse allegations involving another sociology professor, Alfred Bulai.
Prof. Bulai retired after allegations of him harassing female students and conditioning exam results on students engaging in sexual acts emerged. Police are investigating the case and prosecutors have asked other victims to come forward.
Speaking of her own experience, Mrs Birchall, who was married and an upcoming politician at the time, claimed Prof. Pieleanu said: “I would like to see you naked. ‘I want to make you a star’, and ‘you are too beautiful for us just to be friends’.
The sociologist and professor who regularly appears on television talk shows has declined to answer the allegations saying he was shocked by the “harsh and licentious’ nature of accusations leveled against him and wanted to keep his good reputation.
Journalist Carmen Dumitrescu said both the professors’ reputation was well known and she was warned by older fellow students when she enrolled. She accused a female professor there of a cover-up in a post.
Mrs. Birchall, the former justice minister said she talked about the alleged harassment at the time, but nobody took her seriously.
“Where were the ‘great statesmen’ to defend me? After the press wrote about the disgusting way in which Pieleanu assaulted me, there was no press investigation, and the ‘great professor’ continued to be invited to the television studios?”, she wrote on Facebook.
She also recalled another Kompromat sex scandal she was a protagonist in the same year when doctored videos appeared online and on television.
“It was one of the most miserable campaigns of defamation and denigration using disinformation….Where was the majority of the press then? Where was (the press) when all the courts made it clear that ‘it was all a smear and smear campaign with false information to remove me from politics’?” she said.
“Where was Mircea Geoana who, although he knew the truth, like a coward, remained silent and, thus, allowed me to be abused and insulted publicly, at the national level!” she said in the post.
Ironically, Mr. Geoana, NATO’s deputy Secretary General and a former foreign minister is touted as a presidential candidate in the Nov. 2024 elections although he has not formally launched his bid.
“Is this our Romania? One in which women are afraid to put on makeup, so that when they go to school or work they don’t somehow attract the attention of a boss who can destroy their family, their lives, their future?,” she added.
This is our Romania, the country where a married woman with a child has to put her career on the line when she has the courage not to give in to the boss’s advances?
Prof. Pieleanu told Epoch Times: “I have a reputation and believe me I want to keep it,” adding, “This is a very harsh and licentious issue against me. .. I can’t answer such questions.”
Asked if he coerced any student into having sexual relations with him in exchange for an exam pass, Prof. Pieleanu replied: “There is no such question and I don’t have an answer to such a question. These things are for me issues that shock me. How can you ask me such questions? God forbid! I’m sorry, I can’t answer any more questions.”
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