Gabriel Andreescu

Gabriel Andreescu is a Romanian human rights activist and political scientist born on 8 April 1952 in Buzău.

He is one of the few Romanian dissidents who openly opposed Nicolae Ceaușescu and the Communist regime in Romania.

At present, he is professor in the Department of Political Science at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, and an active member of several Romanian human rights organizations.

He is also a prodigious journalist, writing and lecturing on topics such as multiculturalism, national minorities, religious freedom and secularism, the ethics and politics of memory and others.

He is editor of the Romanian-language New Journal of Human Rights (Noua Revista de Drepturile Omului, formerly Revista Romana de Drepturile Omului).

Andreescu attended the BP Hasdeu high school in his hometown, then obtained a BA in Physics from the University of Bucharest.

He taught high school physics (1976–1980), then moved to Bucharest where he worked as a researcher for the National Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (1980–1989).

During this period he published academic papers on linguistics, logics, and mathematical poetics among others.

He was investigated by the Securitate (the Romanian communist-era political police) starting with 1979.

Between 1983 and 1987 Gabriel Andreescu dispatched clandestine information on human rights abuses in Romania to Radio Free Europe and wrote several anti-communist articles and studies, some of which he managed to send and publish abroad.

He was arrested for his anti-communist activities in December 1987 and indicted for treason (but freed in January 1988 as result of international protests, and put under surveillance till the fall of the Communist regime).

Nevertheless, he continued to write and dispatch letters of protest to the Western media (1988–1989).

Some of them (e.g., Lettre à la Conférence de Cracovie (1988) and Le devoir d'ingérence (1989)) were published in the Western press (L'Autre Europe and Libération).

After the December 1989 anti-Communist revolution, Andreescu abandoned his career as a physicist to continue his activism for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

His work as a human rights activist, political analyst, journalist, and writer blended with academic teaching and research.

In June 1989 he went on a hunger strike as a protest against the continuous violation of human rights in Romania.

He was demoted and placed by the Securitate under house arrest in Buzău, then again arrested, to be released after the revolution of December 1989.

After the anti-Communist revolution Andreescu became a member of the Council of the National Salvation Front, the first post-Communist governmental body after the revolution in 1989 (he soon resigned).

He also initiated and was co-president of the Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania – the Romanian Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH), where he also worked as expert on national minorities and freedom of conscience and religion.

He co-founded and was president of the Group for Social Dialogue (GDS), as well as founding member and vice-president of the Civic Alliance (AC).

Gabriel Andreescu founded and headed other organizations developing strategies and projects in support of human rights, among them the Ombudspersons for National Minorities, the Center for International Studies, the Center of Inquiry-affiliated Center for Critical Conscience, and the Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience.

He was a board member of several other organizations (Hungarian Europe Society, Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, Partnership for Equality, Open Society Foundation Expert Teams, Foundation for the Development of Civil Society), as well as a member of the scientific boards of other organizations.

Gabriel Andreescu also participated in international programs and research, including

As a journalist and political analyst, he contributed to several Romanian newspapers and magazines (Ziua, Timpul, Observator cultural, Revista 22, Opinia, Altera, Cotidianul etc.); between 1994 and 2004 he wrote for Radio Free Europe.

In recognition of his human rights activism and contribution to the development of Romanian civil society, Andreescu received several awards from Romanian institutions and organizations:

International awards

Gabriel Andreescu published more than 1000 articles, 150 studies, 28 books, and contributed to several collective volumes.

Some of his works were translated into English, German, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian.