Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă (born 13 November 1975 in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

) is a Romanian lawyer and

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...

politician. She gained notorious popularity in 2020 after she published several messages against

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

restriction measures on social media sites such as Facebook. Iovanovici Șoșoacă is a former member of the

Alliance for the Union of Romanians The Alliance for the Union of Romanians ( ro, Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor, AUR) is a right-wing populist and nationalist political party currently active in Romania and Moldova. It was founded on 19 September 2019. This was done with the ...

(AUR) and part of the Senate of Romania for the Iași County since 21 December 2020. She later said that she did not want to enter the

Parliament of Romania The Parliament of Romania ( ro, Parlamentul României) is the national bicameral legislature of Romania, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies ( ro, Camera Deputaților) and the Senate ( ro, Senat). It meets at the Palace of the Parliament i ...

but that she was forced by other people who pressured her. On 10 February 2021, she was excluded from AUR's

parliamentary group A parliamentary group, parliamentary party, or parliamentary caucus is a group consisting of some members of the same political party or electoral fusion of parties in a legislative assembly such as a parliament or a city council. Parliamentar ...

after AUR members

Claudiu Târziu Claudiu Richard Târziu (born 20 February 1973 in Bacău, Bacău County, Romania) is a Romanian right-wing to far-right politician and journalist. Together with George Simion, he was the co-president of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians ...

and

Sorin Lavric Sorin Lavric (born 27 November 1967 in Turnu Severin, Socialist Republic of Romania) is a Romanian writer, philosopher and politician. Having started studying medicine in 1987, Lavric later began studying philosophy as well. Posteriorly, as he d ...

proposed her exclusion for not following the party's strategy. Subsequently, on 30 May 2022, she joined S.O.S. Romania, a party founded in November 2021. Șoșoacă is one of the main anti-vaccine figures of the

COVID-19 pandemic in Romania The COVID-19 pandemic in Romania is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was confirmed to have reached Romania on 26 February 2020, when the f ...

. She also supports a Romanian withdrawal from the EU and holds an

anti-immigration Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...

rhetoric centered on the

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

n-born Romanian physician

Raed Arafat Raed Arafat ( ar, رائد عرفات; , first name also spelled Rayed; born May 24, 1964) is a Syrian-born Romanian intensive care physician of Palestinian origin, specialised in anesthesiology. He founded the Mobile Emergency Service for Resus ...

. On 12 December 2021, Șoșoacă was accused by the Italian television channel

Rai 1 Rai 1 () is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream and general ...

of having kidnapped the journalist Lucia Goracci following an interview about COVID-19 pandemic. The journalist decided to leave the apartment where the interview was planned to be held after the senator told her that if the person who translate does not translate correctly she will pause them and correct them. Furthermore, one of the teammates tried to enter and a room without consent where the senator had important documents. Therefore the senator did not want them to leave before the police come and question their suspicious acts but the door was never locked as Gorraci left the apartment before police came in. The journalist was later arrested under

accusation An accusation is a statement by one person asserting that another person or entity has done something improper. The person who makes the accusation is an accuser, while the subject against whom it is made is the accused. Whether a statement is i ...

s of possible theft and

trespass Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding ...

ing made by the senator towards her, and she was released only following the intervention of the Italian embassy in Romania. Șoșoacă has also been recurrently criticized in Romanian media for her ties with

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The Russian state-controlled

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...

news agency labeled her "the politician of the year 2021 in Romania". Furthermore, in March 2022, in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Șoșoacă together with 3 other parliamentarians met with the Russian ambassador in Bucharest "on the theme of the memorandum related to the Peace of Bucharest", discussing a "position of neutrality of Romania" in the invasion, without the approval for representation by the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

leadership. One of those parliamentarians was PSD deputy Dumitru Coarnă, who was expelled from the party shortly after the meeting. Additionally, Șoșoacă was appreciated by Killnet (a pro-Russia hacking group which launched in 2022 a series of cyberattacks on multiple Romanian websites), after she said that Romania must not get involved in the war in Ukraine. In March 2023, she proposed a law project on the Romanian Parliament for the annexation by Romania of Northern Bukovina, the

Hertsa region The Hertsa region, also known as the Hertza region ( uk, Край Герца, Kraj Herca; ro, Ținutul Herța), is a region around the town of Hertsa within Chernivtsi Raion in the southern part of Chernivtsi Oblast in southwestern Ukraine, ne ...

Budjak Budjak or Budzhak (Bulgarian and Ukrainian: Буджак; ro, Bugeac; Gagauz and Turkish: ''Bucak''), historically part of Bessarabia until 1812, is a historical region in Ukraine and Moldova. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danube ...

, Northern Maramureș and Snake Island from Ukraine, as they were "historical territories" that belong to Romania as stated in the law project. In retaliation, Ukraine announced it would impose sanctions against Șoșoacă, labeling her as a threat to Ukrainian national security.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iovanovici Sosoaca, Diana 1975 births Living people Lawyers from Bucharest 21st-century Romanian women politicians 21st-century Romanian politicians Politicians from Bucharest Alliance for the Union of Romanians politicians Members of the Senate of Romania Members of the Romanian Orthodox Church Romanian anti-vaccination activists COVID-19 conspiracy theorists Far-right politics in Romania Romanian conspiracy theorists Euroscepticism in Romania