E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.2 page 5 I. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT 8. Romania covers an area of 237,500 square kilometres and, according to the 2002 census, has a population of 21,698,181 inhabitants, of whom 89.5 per cent are Romanian, 7.1 per cent Hungarian, 1.8 per cent Roma, 0.5 per cent German and 0.3 per cent Ukrainian (the remaining 0.8 per cent are of other nationalities). 9. At the end of the Second World War, Romania was ruled by a communist Government. King Michael I was forced to abdicate in December 1947 and the country became a republic. Romania then entered a long period of communist rule. Nicolae Ceausescu became Secretary-General of the Communist Party in 1965 and head of State in 1967. 10. In December 1989, large popular demonstrations broke out in Timisoara and Bucharest and were brutally suppressed by the police. Following Nicolae Ceausescu’s flight, the Provisional Council of the National Salvation Front took power and the “traditional” political parties reappeared. Ion Iliescu was elected President on 20 May 1990. 11. The new Constitution entered into force on 8 December 1991 after it had been submitted to a national referendum, and Romania became a constitutional democracy with a two-chamber parliamentary system. The Prime Minister is head of Government and the president is head of State. 12. As far as international law is concerned, Romania is a party to the six core international human rights instruments (the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women). 13. In fulfilment of its treaty obligations, Romania submitted its fourth periodic report (CCPR/C/95/Add.7) to the Human Rights Committee at its sixty-sixth session in July 1999. Among the main concerns of the Committee were discrimination against the Roma, violence against women, interference by the executive in judicial matters, and the right to conscientious objection. II. RELIGIOUS DEMOGRAPHICS 14. To determine the religious demographics of Romania, the Special Rapporteur has relied largely on the results of the 2002 census. However, he would like to point out that many of the people he spoke to expressed doubts about the accuracy of the census in relation to religious affiliation, alleging that it was marred by a number of irregularities and ploys, deliberate or otherwise, including the tendency of census officials to assume that interviewees were of the Orthodox religion. The authorities say there is no proof of fraud. Partly because of the fall in the birth rate, the results have not changed much since the 1992 census.