On Friday, unknown perpetrators vandalized the Monument of the Szekler Martyrs, painting it over with the colors of the Romanian flag. The use of red-yellow-blue paint is becoming more and more common in the case of defacing different Hungarian signs and reviling monuments. According to the head of the city, the perpetrators might be the same as those ones, who incited the population in Târgu Mureș/Marosvásárhely with regard to ethnicity, before the municipal elections.
No information is available in any minority language in the Romanian vaccination campaign
In Romania, as in Europe and other countries in the world, there is a vaccination campaign to beat Covid-19. Given the discrimination that can be observed in this field, namely that there is no information in Hungarian, it is not possible to register for the vaccine in Hungarian and there are no forms in Hungarian, which must be filled before getting vaccinated, the “Mikó Imre” Minority Rights Legal Services Assistance turned to the National Council for Combatting Discrimination. The object of the complaint is that citizens are informed about the vaccine only in Romanian and the difficult medical terminology is challenging even for those, who otherwise are native speakers of Romanian. It is more than clear that Romanian citizens belonging to the Hungarian minority are discriminated and the information available only in Romanian impairs the elderly people, who are the most in need of protection.
Persecution of the symbols of national minorities continues
As it is known, Dan Tanasă, the person who initiated hundreds of lawsuits against the symbols of Szeklerland and the use of the Hungarian language, a year and a half ago filed a lawsuit against the Remetea/Gyergyóremete City Hall, the reason being the displayed flags at this. For fifteen years five flags have fluttered on the facade of the city hall: the flag of Romania, the one of the European Union, the one of Hungary, the one of Szeklerland and the one of the village (in this order). After the case has gone through all of the stages of the Romanian justice system, according to the court’s judgement pronounced by the Bucharest Court of Appel, the flag of Hungary, the flag of Szeklerland and the one of the village of Remetea/Gyergyóremete must be removed from the Mayor’s Office facade.
Romanian journalists, embassies and politicians are also worried that an ultra-extremist party has entered the Romanian Parliament
This year’s parliamentary elections came as a big surprise after the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), an ultranationalist, extremist and anti-Hungarian party received 9.08% of the votes. The victory of AUR is staggering taking into account the fact that, inter alia, in the local elections held in September, 2020, they obtained only around 1% of the citizens’ votes. Subsequently, many wondered what lies behind AUR and what impact it would have on the Romanian politics.
According to George Simon, co-president of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) has no place in Parliament
For the first time in the last 12 years, an ultra-nationalist party has entered the Romanian Parliament with a very strong support. This is incredibly worrying, as the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) is totally against the minorities and promotes legionary ideas.