Every day when the Lutheran church bell strikes noon, people fall silent in a leafy street in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu. For more than 500 days, in snow, drizzle and scorching sun, a group of residents has staged a silent protest in the centre of the picturesque city. Always at the same time, and always at the same place: outside the headquarters of Romania’s ruling Social Democrat party (PSD), which is embroiled in corruption scandals and accused by Brussels of flouting democratic values.

The message to the PSD is simple, says Ciprian Ciocan: “We know what you are doing and we are watching every move that you do, and we are here to defend the rule of law.” He says he never knows how many people will show up to protest.

Ciocan, a 30-year old entrepreneur turned NGO leader, was one of the founders of Vӑ Vedem din Sibiu, which can be translated as “we are watching you from Sibiu”.

The logo of the group. Photograph: Jennifer Rankin

Its logo is styled after the traditional windows in Sibiu’s steep red-tiled roofs: narrow ovals that look like shrewdly watchful eyes.

A Sibiu house with traditional windows. Photograph: Jennifer Rankin

The grassroots movement is another sign of the struggle for the soul of the former communist country, one of the EU’s newest, poorest and most corrupt members.

Vӑ Vedem din Sibiu began on 11 December 2017, when the government attempted to overhaul the judiciary in a way critics said increased state control over judges and the widely respected National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). Since the PSD came to power, Romania has experienced its biggest protests since the fall of Communism, in Bucharest and dozens of towns and cities.

While large demonstrations come and go, Sibiu’s silent flash mob never stops. “Those 15 minutes every day, it is like a flame that never goes out,” said Ciocan, who ensures protests are filmed for Facebook, where they pick up a few thousand views. “Somebody knows that there are still people in Sibiu, no matter whether it rains or snows or whatever.”

Bianca Toma of the Romanian Centre for European Policies, an organisation that supports the group, says this kind of protest is unusual for a small city. Sibiu is home to 154,000 people, a small share of Romania’s 19.6 million population. “They were the first local group and what they have done with their protest is quite interesting and impressive, because usually Bucharest or big cities like Cluj were first to react to what is happening.”

On an overcast, drizzly day in May, about 25 people of all ages showed up. The protest takes place in Sibiu’s picturesque centre, where handsome Baroque buildings testify to its former life as Hermannstadt, the centre of German-speaking Transylvania. Some protesters had Romanian and EU flags. Others brought handmade signs reading “resist” or accusing the PSD and its junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (Alde), of being a mafia.

Protesters outside the PSD headquarters. Photograph: Jennifer Rankin

Across the street, nobody entered or left the PSD headquarters, an elegant sand-coloured building, with large windows covered with book displays and posters.

Diana Manta, a 37-year-old who works in publishing, tries to come every day. “My lunch break is here,” she says. “I do this because I am against corruption, I am against the politicians who are leading Romania currently and because I see corruption affecting our lives. We don’t have hospitals because of corruption, we don’t have decent schools for our kids, we don’t have roads.”

She also worries that corruption prevents Romania from making the best use of EU funds, worth €31bn between 2014 and 2020. If she can make the weekend protests, she brings her eight-year-old daughter. “I was seven years old when communism ended here in Romania and I want her to grow up in the same atmosphere where you are free to do what you want.”

Scrolling through the group’s Facebook page is a trip through the seasons. In December, protesters stand by heaps of dirty snow, a few wearing Romanian tricolours as scarves. During a July downpour in 2018, people carry umbrellas and letters spelling mulțumesc mult (thanks a lot): a message to Laura Codruța Kövesi who was sacked that month as head of the DNA, where she had overseen high-profile convictions. The same street has also played host to Mayday picnics, teach-ins and events for Romanians visiting from abroad, who are greeted with bread and salt.

The gatherings always happen in the same spot; except on one day in May when EU leaders rolled into town for a unity-building summit looking ahead to post-Brexit times. The gathering was chaired by Klaus Iohannis, a former mayor of Sibiu, elected Romania’s president in 2014 on an anti-corruption platform.

Police patrol the main square in Sibiu before the European summit last month. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

Before Sibiu’s central square had even been cleared of summit debris, the European commission warned it could trigger an EU sanctions procedure against Romania. Proposed changes to the judiciary risked creating “de facto impunity for crimes, including crimes of corruption”, the first vice-president of the European commission, Frans Timmermans, wrote to Romania’s most senior politicians. Experts at the Council of Europe’s Venice commission had warned the changes would “seriously impair the effectiveness of the Romanian criminal justice system” in the fight against crime, including corruption.

Under pressure from the EU and following a referendum in May where Romanian voters decisively rejected a widely discussed amnesty for corruption offences, the governing PSD has dropped some of the most controversial measures. In a triple blow, the party also lost seats in European parliament elections, while the PSD leader, Liviu Dragnea, was sent to jail to begin a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption.

The European commission welcomed the change in policy announced by the prime minister, Viorica Dăncilă, heaping praise on her “European approach”. In an interview with the Guardian, Dăncilă said she wanted to go back to an agenda “that is focused on the citizen, less on the justice system”. But EU officials remain cautious about how her pledges will be implemented.

Toma says the prime minister’s decision to drop an emergency ordinance that would have given an amnesty to people convicted of corruption was a good sign, but the struggle over the rule of law has not finished. “There are many other dangers,” she says, citing the work of a special department that is investigating the DNA. “There are still things to be undone and it’s a matter of fact, not just [making] statements.”

The PSD has always rejected charges of corruption, whether from Brussels or Romanian citizens, but the response varies. When the Vӑ Vedem din Sibiu protest began, PSD workers drew the blinds, according to Ciocan, and issued a statement accusing the demonstrators of “aggressive” behaviour.

The response to international media feels more polished. Questions to the PSD were directed to one of their MEP candidates. Cristian Terhes, a Romanian-American priest who has been living in California for the last 16 years, subsequently won a seat in the European parliament, although his party lost ground.

Sibiu’s peaceful protests were “clear proof that democracy is working”, he said.

He claimed that many politicians and officials were convicted of corruption through tampered evidence and the underhand work of secret services: accusations that echo those made by Dragnea. Terhes also said the Council of Europe’s independent experts had made “many errors and missed facts”, and claimed judges had more independence in Romania than any other EU country.

The PSD message does not convince protesters in Sibiu. “We don’t want to live in a country where corrupt people are leading us and taking our country into a mess,” says Paula Dörr, 13, who was attending the protest on school break, accompanied by her father.

The protesters plan to be back tomorrow.