Famous Romanian Dissident Doina Cornea Dies

Romanian anti-communist dissident Doina Cornea, one of the country's most vocal human righst and democracy activists, died on Friday, aged 89, her family announced.

Cornea was born in 1929 in Cluj Napoca and was French literature professor at the Cluj Napoca Babes Bolyai University.

 She became known in the 1980s for her public stances against the communist government and Nicolae Ceausescus - highly unusual in a country where few dared express opposition to the highly repressive government.

She circulated translations of banned books and also authored no less than 31 letters broadcast on Radio Free Europe between 1981 and 1989.

She was fired from the university in 1982, arrested and tortured by the communist secret service on several occasions, including in 1987, when she supported a revolt of workers in her native town of Brasov.

On November 18, 1987, together with her son, Leontin Iuhaş, in Cluj-Napoca they spread 160 manifestos of solidarity with the workers who rebelled against the Ceausescu regime.

They were both arrested the following day and kept in prison for five weeks. They were released following an international outcry and a documentary about Romania under Ceausescu broadcast on French television, which included an older interview with Cornea.

The 1989 revolt that toppled Ceausescu's government found her under house arrest due to her frequent letters to the BBC and Radio Free Europe criticizing Ceausescu's policies.

After her release on December 21, Cornea was one of the central personalities of the events in Cluj Napoca, where she took part in the protests despite the security forces' crackdown.

After joining the National Salvation Front, the political organization that took over the government in...

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