Repeated criticism of the "Final Report" was voiced by Romanian-born Israeli historian and former Radio Free Europe contributor Michael Shafir. In a January 2007 interview with Tapalagă, Shafir had expressed objections to the document's referencing a "genocide" in Communist Romania, arguing that this verdict was exaggerated and unscientific, and objected to Iron Guard activists allegedly being included among the regime's victims, in the same category as members of democratic forces. Shafir, who nevertheless also stated the existence of "chapters in the report where I wouldn't change one comma", rated the text "a seven, no more than an eight." Accusing Vladimir Tismăneanu's adversaries at "Ziua" of having a dissimulated far right agenda, he added: "Every time Mr. Tismăneanu was attacked unjustly, I took a stand provided I thought my word counted." In late May 2006, Shafir had joined a group of intellectuals (comprising Liviu Antonesei, Andrei Cornea, Marta Petreu, Andrei Oişteanu, Leon Volovici and others) who together issued a formal protest against "Ziua" journalists, in particular Dan Ciachir, Victor Roncea and Vladimir Alexe, over their treatment of figures such as Tismăneanu and Foreign Minister Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, and over their allegedly Iron Guard-inspired and antisemitic rhetoric. Shafir's perspective on the matter of genocide was supported early on by exiled writer Dumitru Țepeneag, who described the "far from perfect" "Final Report" as having the "not at all dismissible quality of being in existence", while calling its main author "an opportunist".