A speech by Botond Csoma, Leader of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ) Parliamentary Group caused nationalist hysteria at the commemoration of the National Holiday in Romania, on the 1^st of December. It is important to know that in 1918 Transylvania, which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, became part of Romania. Therefore, the 1^st of December is a highly sensitive topic for Hungarians in Transylvania.

Botond Csoma, Member of Parliament, spoke, among other things, about the Hungarian community envisioning their future in Romania, and that UDMR/RMDSZ is a partner in all the ideas that improve the living standards of citizens regardless of their ethnicity.

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As it is known, many protests against anti-epidemic measures were organized in several cities in the country last week, which were coordinated by the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR). A crowd of nearly 400 people gathered in the center of Pitești on Monday afternoon to protest against the lockdown rules, the mandatory use of face masks and to demand freedom.

In the first part of the protest the crowd protested against the restrictions and shouted slogans such as „Freedom!” and „Down with the Government!”, however, in the second part the crowd started to chant xenophobic slogans. The crowd also shouted the well-known „Out with the Hungarians from the country!” chant, which is frequently used at football matches. It is inexplicable why the crowd blamed the Hungarians for the current epidemiological situation and took the opportunity to incite to hatred against the Hungarian minority.

Erika Benkő, director of the Mikó Imre Minority Rights Legal Services Assistance explained: „It is very worrying that such anti-Hungarian statements were made at the protests organized by a parliamentary party and that there is a search for scapegoats during the epidemic, which is given an ethnic tone due to the fact that anti-Hungarian rhetoric is often present in the discourse of people protesting against anti-epidemic measures.”

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.

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