Romania 1990: the mineriads and the power of state television

Series: How minds are moved · The official line vs what people lived · 6 of 7

On the afternoon of 15 June 1990, newly elected President Ion Iliescu stood in front of several thousand coal miners at Romexpo in Bucharest and thanked them “for everything you have done in these days”. The miners had spent a day and a half “making order” in the capital with clubs and rubber hoses. They had beaten students, professors and passers-by, wrecked university faculties and ransacked opposition party offices. Officially, 6 people died between 13 and 15 June and 746 were injured. Three months earlier, in Târgu Mureș, Romanians and Hungarians had been set against each other in the street, and six days after that, Romania had a new secret service.

In 1990 Romania had one television channel, and the state ran it. This post is about what that channel did.

Contents · 9 sections

TL;DR #

• In spring 1990, protesters in University Square in Bucharest demanded, among other things, a free state television. The President called them “golani”, hooligans. The pro-government press called them drug addicts, Neanderthals and “a tumour”.
• On 13 June, after the square was cleared and riots broke out, Iliescu went on television and asked “all conscious and responsible forces” to defend the government and the TV station. Miners arrived the next morning.
• In Târgu Mureș, 19 and 20 March 1990, each side’s media told its own story. Romanian media falsely reported a massive influx of Hungarians; foreign TV showed a beaten Romanian villager as a Hungarian victim.
• The official toll in Târgu Mureș was 5 dead and 278 injured. On 26 March 1990 the SRI, the Romanian Intelligence Service, was created. A 2006 presidential commission called the events an “ethnic diversion” used as a pretext. That conclusion is contested.
• Nobody has been convicted for June 1990. In 2014 the European Court of Human Rights found Romania had failed to investigate it properly.

What it is #

In the book I am writing, SHTF vs STFU, two chapters cover 1990: “We Don’t Sell Our Country”, after the slogan of the ruling National Salvation Front, and “A Letter to a Romanian Friend”, after the first work published by the Hungarian writer András Sütő, who lost an eye in Târgu Mureș.

The persuasion mechanism here is dehumanising labels plus a single channel plus a call to action. First you rename the people you want removed. Then, through the only screen everyone watches, you describe the danger they pose. Then you ask “responsible citizens” to deal with it. Each step looks small. Together they turn neighbours into targets.

How it works #

Step one: the label. On 22 April 1990 a few hundred people sat down in University Square and refused to leave. They declared it a “zone free of neo-communism”. Their demands included applying Point 8 of the Proclamation of Timișoara (barring former party activists and Securitate officers from office for three elections), putting those responsible for the killings of December 1989 on trial, and freeing state television from government control. Within days, Iliescu called them “golani”. He later said he regretted the word.

The protesters turned it into a badge. For 53 days, tens of thousands came every evening. But the label was taken up elsewhere. The Romanian writer Ruxandra Cesereanu, in Imaginarul violent al românilor, which is in my library, collected the words used by the pro-government press of the time: “drug addicts”, “alcoholics”, “scum”, “primitives”, “Neanderthals”, “non-humans”, “psychiatric patients”, and the square as “a tumour”. When people are described like that for weeks, what is done to them next becomes easier to accept.

Step two: the single channel. There was no need for formal censorship. There was one TV channel, owned by the state, and the two biggest dailies backed the government. Slogans first chanted at pro-government rallies in January 1990, “Moarte intelectualilor!” (“Death to the intellectuals!”) and “Noi muncim, nu gândim!” (“We work, we don’t think!”), were heard again in June, shouted as a boast.

Step three: the call. On 13 June, after police cleared the square at dawn, the city descended into chaos. Police buses burned; the police headquarters, the Interior Ministry and the TV building were attacked. Who started what is still disputed. That evening Iliescu spoke on television, called the events a “legionary rebellion”, after Romania’s fascist uprising of 1941, and asked “all conscious and responsible forces” to gather around the government building and the TV station. That night, trains of miners left the Jiu Valley.

On 14 June around ten thousand miners reached Gara de Nord. According to the prosecutors in the later mineriad case, intelligence officers met them and directed them around the city. They went into the Faculty of Geology and smashed its mineral collection. They beat professors, among them the scholar Petru Creția, who had spoken from the university balcony that spring. They beat the student leader Marian Munteanu unconscious. They raided opposition party offices and showed off on TV “weapons” and “fake dollars” they said they had found there. Anyone with a beard, glasses or a book was at risk. Roma people were beaten too.

Târgu Mureș: two stories, two languages #

Three months earlier, in March 1990, the same mechanism had worked along an ethnic line. Târgu Mureș was split roughly half Romanian, half Hungarian. Tensions over a school, a false telegram claiming Romanian pupils had been beaten out of their schools, a bilingual pharmacy sign reported by the national news agency as a Romanian sign replaced by a Hungarian one: every incident was told twice, in two languages, in opposite ways.

On 19 March, villagers brought by bus from the Gurghiu valley attacked the building where the Hungarian party had its offices. András Sütő was beaten and lost an eye. Human Rights Watch recorded that the police did not respond for hours. On 20 March, two crowds faced each other in the main square with a thin line of about 50 unarmed police between them, and it broke. Five people died in those days, three Hungarians and two Romanians, according to the official toll, and 278 were injured.

Both national stories were managed. According to published accounts of a later Romanian parliamentary report, Romanian media had falsely reported a massive influx of Hungarians coming to fight for a separate Transylvania. And the most famous film abroad, of a man in a green sweater beaten in the street, was broadcast as a Hungarian victim of Romanians. He was a Romanian villager from the Gurghiu valley, beaten by Hungarians, who survived with lifelong disabilities. The director of the British documentary that used it later told a Romanian newspaper that most of the footage had come from the Hungarian side of the production. Romanians still cite that caption as proof of foreign media lying, and rightly. What the Romanian retelling usually leaves out is Sütő’s eye, the day before. Both are true.

On 26 March 1990, six days later, a presidential decree created the SRI under Virgil Măgureanu, a former Securitate officer. In 2006 the presidential commission on the communist dictatorship described Târgu Mureș as an “ethnic diversion” that served as the pretext for creating it. Others argue every state needs an intelligence service and the timing was coincidence. No court has examined it.

What it feels like from the inside #

If you lived outside Bucharest in June 1990 and watched the one channel, you saw burning buses, attacks on the TV station and a president warning of a fascist rebellion. The miners looked like order arriving. Many Romanians cheered them. That is the force of a single channel: it does not need to tell you what to think about the people being beaten; it has already shown you the burning buses and told you who the “golani” are.

What it can and cannot do #

It worked in the short term: the square was emptied. It cost the country heavily: Western governments froze aid, the IMF suspended its agreement, and many young educated Romanians decided that week to leave. It also backfired on its authors: in September 1991 the miners came back and brought down Prime Minister Petre Roman’s government.

In June 1990 the official count is 6 dead; the victims’ association says over a hundred, which has never been proven and resembles the inflated figures of December 1989. Both should be treated with care. In September 2014 the European Court of Human Rights, in Mocanu and Others v. Romania, found Romania had violated the right to life and the ban on inhuman treatment by failing to investigate for more than twenty years. Iliescu was indicted for crimes against humanity in 2017 and again in 2025. He died in August 2025 and was never judged. Nobody has been convicted.

How to notice it #

• Labels that remove humanity. Words like “scum”, “tumour”, “non-humans” for a group of people are a warning, whoever uses them.
• One channel, one story. If you have only one source, look for a second, even a foreign one.
• A call for citizens to restore order. When officials ask civilians, rather than police and courts, to deal with protesters, ask why.
• Things “found” on camera. Weapons and fake money displayed by the people who raided an office are not evidence until checked.
• Each side’s martyr. If your media only show your own side’s wounded, the story is incomplete.
• What comes next. After a crisis, note which new powers or institutions appear, and how quickly.

Frequently asked questions #

What is a mineriad? #

The name Romanians give to the miners’ descents on Bucharest in 1990 to 1991 (and attempts in 1999). The best known is 13 to 15 June 1990, when miners beat protesters and others after a televised presidential appeal.

Did Iliescu call the miners? #

His televised appeal of 13 June asked “conscious and responsible forces” to defend the government and TV station; miners left that night, and he thanked them on 15 June. Whether he organised their coming is the subject of the criminal case, which ended for him with his death in 2025.

Who was to blame in Târgu Mureș? #

Each side blames the other, and both have real grievances: the attackers of 19 March were never convicted, while one of the two Hungarians convicted of beating the villager on the film escaped to Hungary and was never extradited. Who organised the buses and rumours has never been established in court.

Was the SRI created because of Târgu Mureș? #

A 2006 presidential commission said the events served as a pretext. Others say the timing was coincidence. It is contested.

The lesson #

In 1990 Romania did not need censorship to steer opinion. It had one channel, a set of labels and a call to “responsible forces”. The people at the bottom paid: students and professors, villagers on buses, miners later dropped by the same power that thanked them. When you hear a group described as less than human and then hear an appeal to “decent citizens” to act, that is the moment to switch channels, and to ask who gains.