A football team's masked ultras attacked children aged 14-17 on the street as they were walking home from the stadium.Continue reading
Hundreds of people marched in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) on Thursday evening to protest against the assault of Hungarian youths that happened on Monday night after a football match. “Ethnicity does not divide us, but hatred does,” the peaceful protesters said.
The peaceful protest in the city’s central park was organized by Hungarian youth organizations in Cluj-Napoca and was attended mainly by young people and students. They were protesting against the abuse of a group of Hungarian youths and minors by Universitatea ultras after a Monday night match between two rival football teams, Universitatea Cluj and CFR Cluj.
The crowd of protesters gathered at the entrance to the Séta Square opposite the Hungarian Theater and then marched peacefully to the venue of the Monday football match at the other end of the park, the Cluj Arena. Hundreds of young people almost filled the space between the arena and the adjacent stadium, some of them holding placards stressing peaceful co-existence between ethnic groups.
Photo: MTI/Kiss Gábor
On behalf of the organizers, Petra László, President of the Hungarian Student Union of Cluj (KMDSZ), welcomed the participants. She stressed that they were marching for an important cause, because a Hungarian student from Cluj, “one of us,” was abused.
Our aim was to raise awareness of the violence and hatred that lurks in society and that prevents us Hungarians from feeling at home in Cluj Napoca,”
she said.
She asked those present to set an example by avoiding violence, saying that only then would there be change. She also spoke a few words in Romanian, stressing that the fact that they are of different ethnicities does not divide the people of the city, because in everyday life they live as neighbors and friends.
Lóránt Szilágyi, president of the co-organizer Cluj County Youth Forum (KIFOR), said that the demonstration was necessary because silence is consent: “If we remain silent, we are sending a message that what happened is acceptable and we accept that we can be beaten up in the street anytime just for speaking Hungarian.” He stressed that Hungarians in Cluj-Napoca must learn to stand up for themselves and for each other.
Young people condemn any form of violence. We want a free and safe life, in which we are at home as Hungarians,”
he said.
The organizers encouraged participants to draw messages with colored chalk to the people of the city in response to the events. A Romanian woman from the crowd also spoke, stressing that many Romanians also believe in equality between ethnic groups.
Public figures were also present among the protesters, including several politicians from the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ). Botond Csoma, spokesman for the RMDSZ, said in response to a question from MTI that Hunor Kelemen, the president of the party, personally informed Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu about the incident on Wednesday, and asked for the perpetrators to be identified and punished as soon as possible. The MP recalled that he himself had asked for the same in his speech in parliament.
On Thursday, Cluj mayor Emil Boc also spoke out on the matter, telling Ziua de Cluj portal that he rejects all forms of violence. He asked the authorities to investigate the case as soon as possible and said that so far there were no indications that the aggression was ethnically motivated. This was also stated by the police, who asked for the public’s help in identifying the perpetrators.
The uncle of the 19-year-old Hungarian victim was also present at the protest, and told journalists that his nephew and friends were assaulted because they spoke Hungarian. The boys were deliberately followed home from the match by the ultras, who also had baseball bats and bottles. The latter was used to hit the Hungarian victim on the head, who suffered a broken nose and four stitches on his face.
Csoma told MTI that the perpetrators should be jailed because the authorities “do not take such incidents seriously,” and they will continue to occur. The politician believes that cases like the one in Cluj-Napoca are also contributed to by the growing aggression in the Romanian public discourse, as “verbal aggression breeds physical aggression.”
Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Kiss Gábor