Gabriel Andreescu is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, and an active member of several Romanian organizations. He is also known for his journalist endeavor, writing and lecturing on topics such as the ethics and politics of memory, national minorities, religious freedom and secularism, and others. He is editor of the Romanian-language New Journal of Human Rights (Noua Revista de Drepturile Omului, formerly Revista Romana de Drepturile Omului).
Between 1983-1987 Gabriel Andreescu dispatched clandestine information on human rights abuses in Romania to Radio Free Europe and wrote several anti-communist articles and studies, some of which he managed to send and publish abroad. He was investigated by the Securitate (the Romanian communist-era political police) starting with 1979. He was arrested for his anti-communist activities in December 1987 and indicted for treason (but freed in January 1988 as result of international protests, and put under surveillance till the fall of the Communist regime). Nevertheless, he continued to write and dispatch letters of protest to the Western media (1988–1989). Some of them (e.g., Lettre à la Conférence de Cracovie (1988) and Le devoir d’ingérence (1989)) were published in the Western press (L’Autre Europe and Libération). In June 1989 he went on a hunger strike as a protest against the continuous violation of human rights in Romania. He was demoted and placed by the Securitate under house arrest in Buzau, then again arrested, to be released after the revolution of December 1989.
After the anti-Communist revolution Andreescu became a member of the Council of the National Salvation Front, the first post-Communist governmental body after the revolution in 1989 (he soon resigned). He also initiated and was co-president of the Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania – the Romanian Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH), where he also worked as expert on national minorities and freedom of conscience and religion. He co-founded and was president of the Group for Social Dialogue (GDS), as well as founding member and vice-president of the Civic Alliance (AC), which were leading organizations promoting the ethics and politics of memory.
Gabriel Andreescu was a board member of the National Institute for the Memory of the Romanian Exile. He also founded and headed other organizations developing strategies and projects in support of human rights, among them the Ombudspersons for National Minorities, the Center for International Studies, the Center of Inquiry-affiliated Center for Critical Conscience, and the Solidarity for Freedom of Conscience. He was a board member of several other organizations (Hungarian Europe Society, Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center, Partnership for Equality, Open Society Foundation Expert Teams, Foundation for the Development of Civil Society), as well as a member of the scientific boards of other organizations.
Gabriel Andreescu also participated in international programs and research. As a journalist and political analyst, he contributed to several Romanian newspapers and magazines (Ziua, Timpul, Observator cultural, Revista 22, Opinia, Altera, Cotidianul etc.); between 1994-2004 he wrote for Radio Free Europe.
In recognition of his human rights activism, contribution to the academic research and the development of Romanian civil society, Andreescu received several awards.
Gabriel Andreescu published 25 books, more than 100 studies and 1000 articles, and contributed to several collective volumes. Some of his works were translated into English, German and Hungarian. His following works are relevant for the actual debate on the ethics and politics of memory:
Selected Books:
Cărturari, opozanți și documente. Manipularea Arhivei Securității (Scholars, opponents and documents. The Manipulation of the Security Archive), Polirom, Iaşi, 2013
L-am urât pe Ceauşescu. Ani, oameni, disidenţă (I hated Ceausescu. Years, People, Dissidence), Polirom, Iaşi, 2009
Reprimarea mişcării yoga în anii `80 (Yoga Repression during 80s), Polirom, Iaşi, 2008
Ruleta. Români şi maghiari, 1990-2000 (The Roulette. Romanians and Hungarians), Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 2001
Solidaritatea alergãtorilor de cursã lungã (The Solidarity of Long Distance Runners), Editura Polirom, Iaşi, 1998
Patru ani de Revoluţie (Four Years of Revolution), Editura Litera, Bucureşţi, 1994