Former Romanian president Traian BĂSESCU is once again displaying a very hostile attitude towards Szeklerland and the Hungarian community living there. After being among the first ones to declare himself against a set of legislation that was meant to extend linguistic rights for Hungarians, and generate a veritable anti-Hungarian hysteria back in June, the former president is now speaking out against the MOL Group for displaying maps of Szeklerland at their gas stations.
As we approach the Centennial of the Great Union, anti-Hungarian sentiment continues to be rampant in Romania. Any negative news involving the Hungarian community is amplified, exaggerated and used to create tension on a national level. The latest development is especially worrisome, since it involves an incident that was provoked and purposely fabricated in order to shed a very damning light on the Hungarian population in Szeklerland.
In this week’s newsletter we also report that after the video of the incident in Odorheiu Secuiesc/Székelyudvarhely had been posted on Youtube, several media outlets presented the events suggesting that these are everyday occurrences in Szeklerland, and thus inciting hatred toward the Hungarian community. Journalist Radu BANCIU in particular, in his TV show entitled Lumea lui Banciu (Banciu’s world) aired on B1 TV, spoke in openly nationalistic and chauvinistic terms about the entire Hungarian minority in Romania. The comments made by BANCIU are hurtful and discriminatory on many levels, not to mention that they also incite to national hatred and violence against the Hungarian community.
The Romanian First Division 2017-2018 football season has barely begun, but the newly promoted team from Sfântu Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy, Sepsi OSK, already has to endure xenophobic slurs from nationalist supporters of other teams.
In our last newsletter we reported that the president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ), Hunor KELEMEN, came under attack for declaring in an interview that the Hungarian community of Romania does not wish to celebrate the upcoming centennial of Romania’s 1918 Great Union. Some politicians, television commentators and other public figures went as far as demanding that the UDMR/RMDSZ president be stripped of his Romanian citizenship.