2017–2019 Romanian protests

There were numerous protests against the Romanian Government between 2017 and 2019. In January 2017, days after the government of the Grindeanu Cabinet was sworn into office in Romania, protests took place throughout the country against ordinance bills that were proposed by the Romanian Ministry of Justice regarding the pardoning of certain committed crimes, and the amendment of the Penal Code of Romania (especially regarding the abuse of power). At the heart of these protests is the community Corruption Kills, founded by Florin Bădiță, who alongside other civic groups organized what proved to be the largest protests since 1989, thus realizing the "Revolution of our generation".

Despite the negative reactions from both the judicial institutions and the public, the newly sworn-in government secretly approved an ordinance modifying the Penal Code and Penal Procedure Code during the night of 31 January.

Opponents raised accusations that the ordinance was intended for decriminalisation of government corruption, and to help hundreds of current and former politicians to escape ongoing criminal investigations or prison sentences.

Immediately after it was announced that the ordinance was passed, more than 37,000 people protested that night. The next day, on 1 February, the protests swelled to over 300,000 people throughout the country, continuing then daily and peaking on 5 February, when over 500,000 Romanians protested throughout the country, making the protests the largest since the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 and the overthrowing of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Since the main grievance of the protesters (the government interfering with the fight against corruption) was not addressed, but rather gradually joined by the attempts of the parliament to relax the anti-corruption laws, the protests continued on an almost daily basis throughout the country, with more and more protesters demanding early elections in addition to the resignation of the government. After the winter of 2017, the next mass protest was on 20 January 2018, when 50,000 – 100,000 Romanians went to the streets to protest against proposed changes to the penal code and to the justice system laws. While protests on a smaller scale continued to happen almost daily, mass protests then erupted again on 10 August 2018, when an anti-government protest with the "Diaspora at Home" motto was held in Bucharest. The 10 August 2018 protest was marked by unprecedented levels of violence in comparison to the other 2017–2018 protests, and lead to an ongoing resurgence of mass protests in Romania.

So far, protestors have succeeded in compelling the government in 2017 to withdraw the contested ordinance and Florin Iordache, who as justice minister was formally responsible for putting forward the ordinance, resigned shortly thereafter over the scandal that ensued.