The recent actions by the police aimed against the protesters and their nature such as bursting into homes early in the morning show that they return to the practices used in the Communist period, when inconvenient people are arrested before weekend, when neither lawyers nor the mass media can be warned, Maia Sandu, the leader of the political project “Action and Solidarity” wrote on a social networking site. The politician criticized the arrest of four participants in the April 24 protest by the police on May 5, IPN reports.

“After violating the right to free movement, now the regime resorted to the direct intimidation of those who do not agree with them. We demand that those arrested should be set free and that transparency should be ensured in the management of this case. We warn the embassies that from abuse to abuse we will reach dictatorship as history shows that reforms in dictatorship do not bring the expected stability,” stated Maia Sandu.

The four protesters whose homes were searched by the police on May 5 were placed under arrest for 72 hours. The persons were arrested within the criminal case concerning the public disorder during the April 24 protest. About 50 witnesses were questioned in this case and the suspects were identified based on their statements and on videos and images that were broadcast by the media and provided by witnesses.