"We want a free and safe life, in which we are at home as Hungarians," one of the organizers underlined.Continue reading
The police and Mayor Emil Boc hastily claimed that the attacks after the Universitatea and CFR (football clubs in Cluj-Napoca) match were not ethnically or racially motivated, said Botond Csoma, the leader of the RMDSZ parliamentary group. He believes the authorities do not want to give significance to anti-Hungarian incidents.
After Monday’s match, Universitatea fans attacked several Hungarian-speaking youths, one of whom was hit in the head with a stick, and another had his knee struck. Around 15-20 masked supporters attacked 14-17-year-old children on the street as they were leaving the stadium. The police issued a statement saying, “they found no evidence that the attack was ethnically or racially motivated,” and also stated that the perpetrators had not yet been identified.
Mayor Emil Boc, although condemning the violent events, said there was no evidence to suggest an ethnic motive behind the incident.
However, Maszol contacted one of the youths who suffered severe injuries in the attack. He stated,
We think we were attacked because we spoke Hungarian, as we had no logos or items indicating support for CFR.
This is the only reason my friends and I can imagine after the incident,” he explained, adding that his nose was broken and his face had to be stitched in four places. According to doctors, the healing time for his injuries is approximately 16-17 days.
Botond Csoma, spokesperson and leader of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ); Photo: MTI/Kiss Gábor
Botond Csoma believes the authorities are trying to downplay the issue. “I find the police statement somewhat hasty, as they have not even identified the perpetrators, and to my knowledge, they have not spoken to the victim. The victim’s family firmly claims that the attack was because they spoke Hungarian. I think Mayor Emil Boc also reacted prematurely,” Csoma said. He pointed out that
over the years, anti-Hungarian incidents have not been taken seriously and were not treated as hate crimes.
“The same thing happens with fascist and anti-Semitic incidents, where anti-Hungarian actions are not taken seriously by law enforcement,” he added. Csoma believes that by not taking such cases seriously, they will continue to occur in the future. He suggested that if at least one such case had resulted in a prison sentence, it could have had a deterrent effect. “The justice system needs to apply the law. I hope something will start now. In any case, I find the police statement and Emil Boc’s comments premature,” he emphasized.
The incident has sparked national outrage. Hunor Kelemen, president of the RMDSZ, called the events “intolerable” in a Facebook post, and asked the Minister of Internal Affairs to punish those who assaulted the Hungarian youths. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó also publicly condemned the recent incidents of extremist football hooligans in Cluj-Napoca and Miercurea Ciuc.
Hungarian youths in Cluj-Napoca also showed solidarity, organizing a peaceful march. Nearly a thousand people chalked messages promoting peaceful coexistence on the stone pavement in front of the BTarena.
The Universitatea fans, grouped under the Peluza Șepcile Roșii, did not distance themselves from their ultras after the CFR derby. They rejected the accusations of anti-Hungarian sentiment, posting on their Facebook page that CFR ultras had also behaved violently on the city’s streets. They shared a video showing that a U-fan’s scarf was forcibly taken, as well as other videos from previous days showing attacks on Dinamo Bucharest fans. As a result, three CFR fans were arrested by the police on Friday.
Via Maszol; Featured picture: MTI/Kiss Gábor