Mihai Coca-Constantinescu | U. Groningen Faculty of Law, NL, Author at JURIST

Britchi Mirela, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Romania dispatch: protests erupt over new anti-extremism law’s impact on free expression

Mihai Coca-Constantinescu | U. Groningen Faculty of Law, NL

March 23, 2026 05:22:39 pm

In January, Romania passed controversial amendments to its anti-extremism legislation, sparking protests over free speech concerns that remain unresolved today. In January, protests took place in Bucharest and several other Romanian cities after lawmakers proposed amendments to the country’s anti-extremism legislation. Demonstrators gathered in central Bucharest raising concerns that the amendments could restrict freedom of [...]

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Last Quaker executed for religious beliefs in American colonies

On March 24, 1661, William Ledda, executed in Boston, became the last Quaker in the American colonies to be put to death for his religious beliefs. Learn more about the persecution of the Quakers in colonial Massachusetts.

Archbishop Óscar Romero assassinated

On March 24, 1980, Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, El Salvador by a right-wing death squad. Romero had become unpopular with conservative elements in the country when he began speaking out against government repression of the nation's poor and of his fellow priests. Read a biography of Archbishop Óscar Romero from the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame University. In 2003, the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), an American human-rights organization, filed a lawsuit in the United States against former Salvadorean Air Force Captain Álvaro Rafael Saravia for his alleged role in the assassination of Archbishop Romero. The suit was filed in a US federal district court under the Alien Tort Claim Act (28 U.S.C. § 1350). In Doe v. Rafael Saravia, the defendant was found guilty of crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killing, resulting in a $10 million judgment against Saravia. Read a description of the case. Romero was later canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2018.