Diana Șoșoacă

Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă (born 13 November 1975) is a Romanian lawyer and far-right politician. As of 2024 she is a member of the European Parliament.

Early life
Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă was born on 13 November 1975 in Bucharest, Romania. Her paternal grandparents were from Skopje, modern North Macedonia; Iovanovici Șoșoacă has stated that "half of me is from Skopje". Her paternal grandparents and their whole family migrated to Romania, with her grandfather having fought during World War II at the Battle of Stalingrad. According to Iovanovici Șoșoacă, an aunt of hers was imprisoned for fighting against the Romanian communist regime. Iovanovici Șoșoacă's mother is Alice Florescu Bleotu, a gynecologist and specialist in esotericism. Iovanovici Șoșoacă is married to Dumitru Silvestru Șoșoacă, who is her third husband.

Details about her studies are scarce. Some sources claim she obtained a law degree from the Romanian-American University in Bucharest, and then worked for Eugen Dijmărescu, Minister of Commerce in the Năstase cabinet. According to her own recounting, she studied law at the University of Bucharest, at the urging of an uncle, who was president of the Prahova County Tribunal.

Political career
Iovanovici Șoșoacă gained notoriety in Romania in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, by protesting restriction measures on social media. She went on to become one of the main anti-vaccine figures in Romania.

On 21 December 2020, she was elected to the Senate of Romania for the Iași County as a member of Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). She later said that she did not want to enter the Parliament of Romania but that she was forced by other people who pressured her. On 10 February 2021, she was excluded from AUR's parliamentary group after AUR members Claudiu Târziu and Sorin Lavric 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.

Iovanovici Șoșoacă also supports a Romanian withdrawal from the European Union and holds an anti-immigration rhetoric focused on the Syrian-born Romanian physician and politician Raed Arafat.

On 12 December 2021, Iovanovici Șoșoacă was accused by the Italian television channel Rai 1 of having kidnapped the journalist Lucia Goracci following an interview about COVID-19 pandemic. According to the report, after a very tense exchange, Iovanovici Șoșoacă locked the door of her apartment and called the police, claiming that someone had entered her office. After the arrival of the police, Iovanovici Șoșoacă insisted to have all the footage deleted. Goracci maintains that she was hit by Iovanovici Șoșoacă's husband. The stalemate ended after eight hours after the intervention of the Italian embassy.

Iovanovici Șoșoacă has also been recurrently criticized in Romanian media for her ties with Russia. The Russian state-controlled Sputnik 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, Iovanovici Șoșoacă together with 3 other MPs met with the Russian ambassador in Bucharest to discuss a "memorandum related to the Peace of Bucharest" and Romania's "neutrality" in the context of the invasion. This meeting had not been approved for representation by the Parliament leadership and one of the MPs, PSD member Dumitru Coarnă, was expelled from his party shortly afterwards.

Additionally, Iovanovici 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, Budjak, 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 Iovanovici Șoșoacă, labeling her as a threat to Ukrainian national security.

In February 2023, she accused the United States of causing the Turkey–Syria earthquakes with a seismic weapon.

On 21 November 2023, Diana Șoșoacă interrupted a secret session of the Parliament of Romania, during which footage of the Israel–Hamas war was presented, screaming "Palestine". She later took a soft pro-Palestine stance during the conflict, stating that Romania should be neutral and mediate the conflict, that Hamas does not represent all Palestinians and that Israel is also commiting war crimes. During a Romania-Israel friendship day event in the Romanian Parliament, she shouted "Long live the Guard" in protest, in reference to the Iron Guard.

In June 2024, Iovanovici Șoșoacă was elected as a member of the European Parliament. She suggested that the Parliament should be "blessed" and "purified" by a priest. On the first day of the Strasbourg Plenary, Iovanovici Șoșoacă wore a muzzle over her face as a sign of dissent during Ursula von der Leyen's opening speech. Later, she loudly protested when French MEP Valérie Hayer suggested that abortion rights be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. After interrupting Hayer's speech several times, she was escorted outside the chamber.