Category: Press Releases

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (NAHC) strongly condemns the Ukraine’s continued series of aggressive, discriminatory and oppressive measures against its Hungarian minority population in Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia Oblast).

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin recently issued a statement (September 21, 2018) and warning to the Hungarian government following an incident in which the Hungarian consulate in Berehove (Beregszász) was secretly filmed issuing legal Hungarian passports to Ukrainian citizens while warning the recipients to not inform Ukrainian officials. The Ukrainian government has threatened to expel the Hungarian Consular if action is not taken. This move by the Ukraine contravenes its international obligations, its own laws on dual citizenship and sits in direction opposition to Ukraine’s desire for further western integration. Subsequently, the Ukraine made good on it’s threat and expelled the Hungarian Consular, forcing the Hungarian government to respond by expelling one of the Ukraine’s Consular.

The Ukraine continues to intimidate and threaten Hungarians in Ukraine from exercising their right to Hungarian citizenship and to promote, celebrate and protect Hungarian culture, language and traditions.

The NAHC believes that Hungarians in Ukraine are increasingly compelled to protect their Hungarian heritage and legal rights in a hidden manner given the anti-Hungarian rhetoric from Kiev and the increasing number of anti-Hungarian statements by government and local officials; coupled with acts of vandalism in Hungarian inhabited areas of Ukraine. The oppressive tone of Ukrainian officials reveals a troubling and threatening environment for Hungarian minorities.

Hungary and Ukraine have already resolved all issues relating to Hungary’s citizenship law which allows individuals with Hungarian heritage to apply for Hungarian citizenship and a passport. To raise this issue now, displays hypocrisy and a violation of European and international laws regulating the treatment of national minorities. The NAHC stands with the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, and across the Carpathian Basis, in expressing a deep desire for the Ukraine to put an immediate stop to ethnically-based hatred and intimidation towards Hungarians and other national minorities and to protect the rights of individuals who are law abiding citizens of the Ukraine and of Hungary.

As the Ukraine enters an election cycle the NAHC calls of the Ukrainian government to use this opportunity to ensure that the Ukraine maintains its path to European integration and to create an inclusive Ukraine that respects the rights of all citizens. Both Hungary and the Ukraine share a common history in many respects, and it would be a step backward if the Ukraine chose a path of nation building that creates an atmosphere of hatred, oppression and ethnic division. The NAHC also calls on the Ukraine to refrain from expelling Hungary’s rightful representative in Berehove. To do so would create a dangerous precedent and dampen Ukraine-Hungary relations.

The NAHC is committed to protecting the rights of all Hungarian minorities and will continue to petition and speak out when acts of discrimination are perpetrated towards Hungarians anywhere. It is our hope that the Ukraine will chose the right path to reconciliation.

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (NAHC) is highly concerned with the degradation of Hungarian and other national minority rights in Ukraine. An untenable situation has developed in Ukraine that jeopardizes individual and minority rights as a result of aggressive and discriminatory action taken by the Ukrainian government against its own citizens. The NAHC calls on the European Union, NATO, the OECD and other organizations to take note of a true and genuine backsliding of democratic and human rights in Ukraine and to take immediate action to defend the rights of all national minorities.

The NAHC has voiced its concern before when Ukraine enacted an Education Law last year which targeted Hungarian and other national minorities by restricting their use and access to education in their native or ethnic language. This move by Ukraine stands in direct violation of European values and should be considered in light of Ukraine’s desire to join the EU and other western alliances. Debate over the new Education Law, and amendments to this restrictive Act, have only exacerbated the desire of the Ukrainian government to make the Education Law even more restrictive than it already is. For example, the current ratio of ethnic speakers of ten percent or higher in a given region are permitted to have access to education in their ethnic language. Talk of raising this requirement to thirty-three percent would be a death knell to the vibrant Hungarian community in Transcarpathia who strive to protect their language, culture, and traditions against oppressive schemes like this.

Most recently, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has instructed Parliament to consider stripping citizenship from those who carry dual citizenship and vote in elections outside the Ukraine. This again specifically targets Hungarians who, after almost a century of discrimination and oppression, have acquired Hungarian citizenship in order to maintain their link to Hungary, their families, and their ethnic kin. The NAHC calls on the international community to increase pressure on the Ukrainian government to bring their laws and their practices in line with European and international obligations.

More worrying has been the military buildup in Transcarpathia. Ukraine has decided to deploy 800-1000 military personnel to within ten kilometres of the Hungarian border. The redeployment of military to an old base near Beregovo (Beregszász) is an open and blatant aggression toward Hungary and the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia. Hungarians pose no national threat to Ukraine or its territorial integrity. To suggest otherwise is representative of a paranoid state targeting its own citizens. The NAHC finds this military move alarming, and hopes for the easement of the tension at Beregovo (Beregszász).

It is tragic that in Twenty-First Century Europe we are faced with the obligation of bringing awareness to continued acts of discrimination and injustice perpetrated toward proud, peaceful, law abiding national minorities. The Ukraine can have a proud place in Europe if it respects the rights of its own people. The NAHC and other organizations will support, protect, and advocate for Hungarian and all ethnic minorities in Europe.

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (NAHC) is greatly concerned and strongly condemns the increasing rate of hate-filled ethnic attacks against Hungarians in Ukraine and the organizations that represent Hungarian minorities in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine.

Recent Molotov cocktail and timed petrol bomb attacks against the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association (KMKSZ) in Ungvar (Uzhgorod) is a direct threat to Ukrainian Hungarians who yearn to protect their culture, practice their language and customs, and live peacefully in Ukraine. These attacks are a calling to all organizations, including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union (EU), to step up their monitoring efforts in Ukraine and to pressure the Ukrainian government to comply with their European and international obligations as it pertains to protecting national minorities.

NAHC welcomes the arrest and detention of three individuals believed to be the perpetrators of the February 4 th attack and the two suspects apprehended for the February 27 th attack, and implore Ukrainian authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation and bring those responsible to justice. Justice however must be accompanied by more stringent protection for Hungarian communities and organizations.

In addition to the violent manifestations of anti-Hungarian propaganda and actions against Hungarian minorities, the Ukrainian government continues to promote a national law on education that openly discriminates against national minorities and jeopardizes the linguistic and cultural rights of Hungarians in Ukraine. A recent letter on February 1, 2018 by the Ukrainian Minister of Education, L.M. Hrinevics, to all schools and educational administrators, attempted to allay any fears by confirming that subjects can be taught in two or more languages based on agreed-upon school curriculums. This however was followed by an affirmation that all teaching staff are required to use and teach in the official state language which, in turn, negates the right to teach in the language of the national minority. This move by the Ukrainian government further limits the use of minority language and is above and beyond even what the law on education stipulates. This alarming action must be brought to the attention of European and international organizations and addressed.

Considering these developments, NAHC supports the actions of the Hungarian government to question Ukraine’s European integration efforts until proper measures are taken to ensure the rights of Hungarian and other national minorities in Ukraine.

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada will not remain silent as long as Hungarian minorities anywhere are under threat or face institutional discrimination or intimidation that impedes their right to practice their language, culture and traditions.

On September 5, 2017 the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) passed an education bill that will prove to be detrimental to Hungarian and other minority communities and their ethnic languages. The new bill stipulates that Ukrainian should be the official language of instruction from grade five onwards, limiting access to education taught in the Hungarian language for kindergarten and primary school students and making Ukrainian the sole language of secondary and higher education. The law will greatly curtail linguistic rights and must be closely followed to determine if it violates Ukrainian constitutional law and European values. Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjarto noted that Ukraine has “stabbed Hungary in the back” with the new law.

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada, NAHC (Kanadai Magyarok Országos Szövetsége, KMOSz), officially submits its protest to the new education law and vows to bring further attention to the discriminatory nature of the law and its harmful regulation against the Hungarian language and those of Ukraine’s other minorities. The survival of Hungarian linguistic and cultural heritage and identity in the Ukraine depends on its ability to use and learn its ethnic language as a means to protect and preserve more than a millennium of Hungarian heritage in Transcarpathia. We call on all organizations to demand that the President of Ukraine send this bill back to parliament for review, and that ethnic minorities in Ukraine be allowed fair input to determine educational reform that befits Ukraine’s European integration.

Ukraine’s new education law further restricts the Hungarian language by regulating the use of the Hungarian language in school from grade five onwards, where only two subjects may be taught in a minority language of the European Union (of which Hungarian is a part). Similarly, there are Hungarian language schools and colleges in Transcarpathia which remain a vital component of Hungarian minority education in Ukraine. The NAHC/KMOSz fears for the future of Ferenc Rákóczi II Sub-Carpathian Hungarian College and the Uzhgorod National University both of which currently instruct in the Hungarian language. We understand that Ukrainian must undoubtedly remain the official language of Ukraine, but almost 20 percent of Ukraine is comprised of ethnic minorities. Their culture must be defended and protected equitably.

Some in the media and among opposition parties in Hungary have shamelessly labeled Hungary’s call for the protection of minority rights for Hungarian minorities in Ukraine as mere nationalism. However, the only culprit responsible for stoking the cauldron of nationalism are those nations that continue to refuse their ethnic minorities the rights and protection guaranteed by both national and European laws and convention. Ukraine has despairingly abandoned its promise to further European integration. If Hungary is not allowed to stand up for its ethnic kin in neighbouring states without rebuke then the whole mechanism for which the protection of minority rights in Europe exists must be called into question. Hungary has witnessed almost a century of ethnic cleansing, discrimination, and assimilation of its ethnic kin in neighbouring states without the voice or means to affect change. It is within Hungary’s right – indeed obligation – to defend the rights of Hungarian minorities and for organizations around the world to raise their concerns to such a discriminatory Ukrainian law.

Hungary has taken every diplomatic effort, including blocking membership to international organizations and turning to the United Nations, to affect change in Ukraine and other neighbouring states who have ignominious records of minority rights protection. It is both ironic and hypocritical that Romania for example has aggressively lambasted the new Ukrainian education law when in fact Romania has denied on numerous occasions those same rights to the sizable Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Further, it is unfortunate that Hungarian minorities in Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, and to a lesser extent in Croatia and Slovenia, must face continuous efforts by national governments to suppress the rights of Hungarian minorities.

A local Transcarpathian politician Andrea Bocskor noted:

“The anti-minority measures of the educational reform are highly disappointing, because Ukraine had already pledged its commitment towards European integration several times. It is impossible to foster the learning of the state language with coercive methods.

Appropriate means, motivation and good examples are the better approach. The forced integration of Ukrainian minorities is a sign of a policy of open assimilation. Adopting this legislation reflects Ukraine’s true standpoint on European integration, European values and the rule of law.”

The Reformed Youth Organisation of Transcarpathia (KRISZ) also:

“Noticed with consternation and was shocked about the decision of the Ukrainian Parliament adopting a law on education which restricts the basic rights of minorities of the country regarding the use of their mother-tongue, including Hungarians, and contradicts European democratic principles.”

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (Kanadai Magyarok Országos Szövetsége) pledges its continued solidarity with the Hungarian minorities in the Ukraine and calls on all international organizations, the European Union, national governments, and concerned citizens to demand that the destructive nature of the new Ukrainian educational law to minority languages and cultural identity goes against the fabric of a democratic and multi-ethnic Ukraine.

This is a declaration and petition for the Szeklerland’s Autonomy.

This document was published in Hungarian, English, Romanian, and was sent to the authorities of the Hungarian, Romanian government and support organizations.

The English version can be downloaded here: Declaration and petition on the Day of National Unity, 2017

The National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada would like to offer its sincere condolences for the victims of the Hungarian bus crash in Italy.

Our prayers go out to the victims and families of those who were killed or injured in this tragic accident.

We hope that a smooth healing process will help the Szinyei Merse Pál High school deal with their loss, and we wish they will recover from this tragedy soon.

On December the 2^nd, 2016, Romanian ex-president Traian Bășescu made the statement (see below) titled The Hungarian Ambassador to Romania should be expelled. To this threat NAHC responded with the following open letter.

Dear Mr. Bășescu,

In response to your recent comments on your Facebook Blog to Prime Minister Victor Orbán of Hungary. It is important that you are reminded of the following information: Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the 28^th President of the United States of America, noted that:

“No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property…”

In 1918 at Gyulafehérvár, on the 1^st of December, in the eastern portion of the historic Kingdom of Hungary, the opposite of Wilsonian principles was forced upon Hungarian minorities – not by the people but by merely a 1,228 member delegation who made the final unlawful decision to join with Romania. That delegation’s decision created the new Romanian state.

The new Romanian National Assembly, for everybody’s peace-of-mind, stated the following:

1. Complete freedom for all minorities. Minorities were promised the right to use their own language in public education, in the justice system, and according to their proportion, the right to make decision for laws and state legislation.
2. Minorities would be endowed with equal rights and freedom within all denominations of the country.

Almost immediately following these statues, Romania refused to live up to its promises and then, as they do now, brutally enforced policies against the Hungarian minority populations.

Below are just a few examples of both historic and present-day injustices against Hungarians. These examples should bring to light some of the historic acts of injustice against Hungarian minorities in Romania.

1. The University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Marosvásárhely has banned the use of the Hungarian language.
2. Ongoing harassment of Hungarian leaders in counties with significant Hungarian minority populations.
3. The banning of the use of the Székely flag, and the Székely peoples political rights in their struggle for rightful autonomy.
4. Ongoing illegal manoeuvres by the state in which Hungarian churches are prohibited from re-acquiring their church properties.

You once boldly stated that the Hungarians in your country should feel equally happy as their Romanian colleagues and to celebrate the last 26 years of progress since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is nothing less than the falsification of the real truth.

Both Hungary and Romania became part of the NATO and the European Union with the same obligations and liabilities. Sadly, only Hungary continues to protect the rights of minorities living in its territory, granting everybody absolute and fair administration of justice.

Until Romania ceases to ignore Wilsonian principles and the agreements at Gyulafehérvár, do not expect that either Romanian Hungarians or the Hungarian diplomatic field to celebrate the 1^st of December.

Sincerely,
National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada

The complete post by Mr. Bășescu (translation by NAHC):

Hey, my chum, Viktor Orbán, we (Romanians) do not wish to pay you (Hungarians) a visit to Budapest without your consent, as we did it once in the course of the last hundred years. But do not provoke us, because our patience has its own limits. Emboldened by the fact that Donald Trump took notice of Viktor Orbán, the servile page, Péter Szíjjártó, has asked no more, no less of his diplomatic corps, in the spirit of the political panorama fuelled by Hungarian Extremism, than not to participate at the celebration of Romania’s National Day the world over, because, and I quote, „the Hungarian nation has nothing to celebrate on December 1”. I can come up with a long list of reasons why the Hungarians living in Romania could be at least as proud as Romanians on December 1. But to our greatest satisfaction, in contrast to Hungarians living in Hungary, the Hungarians of Romania have benefited in the last 26 years from a respectable political leadership, on both national and international levels, committed to NATO and UE values, values that in recent years have become elective and irrelevant to Budapest. In the light of this unprecedented insult to Romania, perpetrated by the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szíjjártó, the only fitting solution is the immediate expulsion of the Hungarian Ambassador from Bucharest, and the recalling of the Romanian Ambassador from Budapest. Otherwise, these soldiers of fortune in the Orbán government will not realize that Romania, truly, extends to the Tisza (river)^*. God save you if we remind ourselves of this^**, demagogues of Budapest.

* In 1919 the Romanian Army invaded Hungary to crush the newly minted soviet-style Republic established briefly in the wake of a lost war, contributing to the subsequent dismemberment of the country. The crumbling communist regime misinformed and misused its hastily formed – vastly inferior – forces composed of commissars and bands of disillusioned soldiers returning from the front, and soon has been left with no army. The nation just stood and watched powerlessly, paralyzed. After marching into the Hungarian capital, the High Command of the retreating Romanian Army, emboldened by several ultimatums of the victorious Allies (The Triple Entente), was reluctant to withdraw behind former national borders, declaring arbitrarily a „new border” alongside the course of the Tisza, in the heart of Hungarian territory. Eventually, the Allies have ordered the Romanian Army back.
** …and do it again, implied.

The complete and original post by Mr. Bășescu:

Prietene Viktor Orban, noi nu vrem să vă vizităm la Budapesta, aşa cum am mai făcut-o în istoria ultimilor 100 de ani fără voia voastră. Dar nu ne provoca, pentru că avem şi noi limite. Încurajat de faptul că Donald Trump l-a băgat în seamă pe Viktor Orban, ministrul de externe maghiar, nevolnicul Peter Syijjarto, o panaramă politică născută sub pulpana extremismului maghiar, a cerut nici mai mult nici mai puţin decât ca personalul dimplomatic maghiar să nu participe nicăieri la ceremoniile ocazionate de ziua naţională a României pentru că, citez, „poporul maghiar nu are nimic de sărbătorit de 1 decembrie“.Pot să fac o lungă listă cu motivele pentru care maghiarii trăitori în România ar putea să fie cel puţin la fel de mândri ca românii cu ocazia zilei de 1 Decembrie. Dar cea mai importantă satisfacţie poate fi aceea că, spre deosebire de maghiarii din Ungaria, maghiarii din România au parte, în România ultimilor 26 de ani, de o conducere politică respectabilă la nivel naţional şi internaţional, ataşată valorilor NATO şi UE, valori care la Budapesta pare că au devenit facultative şi nerelevante în momentul ultimii ani. Având în vedere afrontul fără precedent adus de ministrul de externe maghiar Peter Syijjarto, României, singura soluţie demnă este expulzarea imediată a ambasadorului Ungariei de la Bucureşti şi rechemarea ambasadorului României de la Budapesta. Altfel aceşti aventurieri din guvernul lui Viktor Orban nu vor înţelege că România adevărată este până la Tisa. Să vă ferească Dumezeu să ne amintim de acest lucru, lătrăi politici budapestani. [huff.ro], [adevarul.ro]

“Live in freedom or die for it with courage…”
(Mór Jókai)

Dear Compatriots,

March 10^th is Szekler Freedom Day!

We, the executives and members of the National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada stand together in spirit with those who walk along the streets of the former capital of the Szeklerland, Marosvásárhely. With deepest sorrow we bow our heads before those who have been victims of Communism. We also bow our heads in memory of our Székely Martyrs, the brutally murdered victims of the freedom fight for the Szekler independence form the Habsburg oppression. On Moarh 10, 1854 in Marosvásárhely (Postarét), the Habsburgs executed János Bágyi Török, Mihály Martonosi Gálfi, and Károly Nagyváradi Horváth. Later, on 19 April, in the township of Sepsiszentgyörgy, István Bartalis and József Váradi were executed. We designate their names as our Székely Martyrs. We are grateful to our priests Áron Márton and Cardinal Mindszenty who, with the help of God, fought with tremendous faith and courage so that we, in posterity, could live in humanity and freedom. In our thoughts, we pay tribute to the upcoming 60th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. This national heroic struggle opened the road towards the collapse of Communism. Today, for all Hungarians, Szekler Freedom Day must be more than just remembering, it must be a day of Solidarity.

Regardless of which part of the Carpathian Basin you were born, as a member of the National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada, we stand united for the autonomy and national sovereignty of the Szeklerland.

We must work together, so that a monument shall be erected in Marosvásárhely (Postarét), with the inscribed words of the great author Mór Jókai: A “Legitimate, Free and Independent National Resistance”, for the autonomy of Szeklerland. We must work hard that in the 21^st century, in Europe’s heart, laws which forbid or ban the use of our ethnic mother-tongue, in an artificially instigated anti-Hungarian environment, will be eliminated, or cannot be labelled in court cases as ethnic reprisals.

Whether in the country of your birth in Europe or somewhere in the world, we can only defend our language and culture if we are free and live in a truly democratic system. Everyone has the right to an independent national life. So, let us adopt Mór Jókai’s words as our slogan for the struggle of Szekler autonomy.

To Be Translated.
The original text can be reached by switching languages using the button below.

To: Mr. David Walmsley
Editor-in-Chief
The Globe and Mail
Toronto, Ontario M5V 2S9
dwalmsley@globeandmail.com
Letters@globeandmail.com

17 December 2014

Dear Mr. Walmsley,

RE: Hungary’s unjust condemnation

Mark Mackinnon’s 14 and 15 December articles on Hungary – ”Hungary at centre of Cold War-style struggle between Russia and the West” and ”Statue in Budapest based on Second World War evokes dark history” – suggest to Canadian readers that Hungary is gradually turning into a dictatorship, while it “sympathizes with Russia in the conflict over Ukraine”. It also implies that democracy in Hungary is in danger and that Prime Minister Orbán ”expresses admiration for the systems” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, as well as Turkey and China.

This is simply misguided and untrue.

Hungary never took Russia’s side in the Ukrainian conflict [Ref. 1], however, it emphasized that a peaceful resolution – preferably without the economic sanctions hurting EU member states including Hungary – should be sought. If one wants to read into this any side taken by Hungary, than it’s rather the side of Ukraine, since during the height of the crisis (when Russian gas supplies were stopped to Ukraine), Hungary pumped more gas to Ukraine than any other country, dropping its own reserve levels to dangerous levels – close to the minimum limits set by the EU. Pumping more gas was technically not feasible, as confirmed by EU Commissioner for Energy, Günther Oettinger in September 2014 [Ref. 2].As for the “admiration” of the likes of Russia, Turkey and China: the original speech from Prime Minister Orbán in Hungarian (delivered on 26 July 2014 in Tusnádfürdő, Romania), stated that “the most popular topic in thinking today is trying to understand how systems that are not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies and perhaps not even democracies, can nevertheless make their nations successful. The stars of the international analysts today are Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey.” [Ref. 3] This is quite different than what Mr. Mackinnon implies! It simply states the fact that some nations, which appear to emerge as winners in the global economic race, are not part of the family of standard Western liberal democracies. Also, how could Hungary be an “admirer of Russia” when it actually reduced Russian influence in Eastern Europe by a number of steps, for example by buying back 21% of the shares of MOL, Hungary’s oil and gas conglomerate from Russian Surgutneftegas [Ref. 4]? Finally, for the suggestion that Hungary is turning into a dictatorship, it is best to cite the 2002 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Mr. Imre Kertész of Hungary, who as a Holocaust survivor and one who lived decades under the communist rule in Hungary, has experienced two dictatorships first-hand. In a recent interview to the New York Times (NYT), Mr. Kertész replied to a direct question from journalist David Straitfeld that although he is “not pleased with everything happening in Hungary today,… but certainly Hungary is no dictatorship. This is empty, ideological language, to call Hungary a dictatorship today!” [Ref. 5]. To his (and our) disappointment, Mr. Kertész’ words were never published by the NYT, – in his view because perhaps this was not the answer the NYT journalist was looking for [Ref. 5]. It demonstrates the true greatness of a Nobel Prize winner that his opinion – which he based on facts – could not be distorted neither by the popular trend of unjustly portraying Hungary as the “enfant terrible of the European Union” (as Mr. Mackinnon writes) nor by his own subjective views.

As Canadians of Hungarian origin, as well as representatives of the largest Canadian Hungarian organization, we aim to promote the friendship between Canada and Hungary, two allied nations within NATO. This, however, requires fair and facts-based reporting about either country in the other’s media. We hope that The Globe and Mail will strive to ensure that the highest journalistic standards are upheld and that it will contribute to reporting about Hungary to Canadians by fair and facts-based reporting in the future.

We would appreciate if you would publish our opinion in the Letter to the Editor section.

Thank you. Regards,
The 16 members of the Board of Directors of the National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (NAHC)
an umbrella organization founded by 65 Canadian-Hungarian organizations www.kmosz.ca