Writer Herta Muller, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, told a news conference, which was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Bucharest on Monday, that she was no longer afraid of the Securitate.

"I do not know if I am afraid. I am not afraid. Even if I know and feel very clearly that I have also been followed ... But I am not afraid. Of course they are everywhere. They are in this country, hold good positions, have fallen on their feet," said the writer referring to a state of affairs existing a few years ago and appreciating that "their intentions are no longer the same as during the dictatorship."

Herta Muller thinks that the Securitate before Ceausescu's time was more brutal and more threatening.  "I think it is very clear. In the 50s it was the most horrible period - it can be seen when considering the camps, the trials. If we read documents, it can be seen very clearly ... It was the most horrible time, there is not doubt about it," she said and added that she did not agree to appreciations that regard the dissidents at Ceausescu's time as "luxury dissidents."

Herta Muller also said that the Nobel Prize only changed her life "on the outside," that is, when coming to Romania, she attends news conferences. "Nothing has changed about me or in my private life," said the writer, who confessed that she had not written any more books since she got the famous prize as a few years must elapse since one book is completed for her to begin another one.

Securitate was the Romanian secret police before 1989.

AGERPRES