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HATE SPEECH AND DISINFORMATION TARGETING THE HUNGARIAN COMMUNITY
HATE SPEECH AND DISINFORMATION TARGETING THE HUNGARIAN COMMUNITY
Mihail Târnăveanu. He posted a picture showing himself displaying a Romanian flag between the Hungarian flags on the occasion of the 15th of March. He also stated that next year more and more such manifesations will take place, until „UDMR/RMDSZ takes the show of autonomy out of its head.”
Observations and recommendations: Social media platforms provide a space also for hateful rhetoric. Not only random individuals, but also politicians tend to use these platforms more and more in order to incite to hatred by exposing deeply xenophobic discourses. According to the recommendations from the European Regional Forum on Minority Issues from 2020, „States should develop long-term, comprehensive policies for combating negative stereotypes of, and discrimination against, minority individuals and groups, and promote intercultural understanding (...).”
4.3. Hate speech and violance in sports Anti-Hungarian behaviour and hate speech are still common in sports, mainly football. Hungarian players are often the target of xenophobic chants during football matches. It is a difficult problem to solve, since there is a lack of explicit legislation and a sanctioning system. Sadly, these incidents are not handled in a proper way from a legal point of view and due to this fact they tend to be a continuing problem.
Blatant and hateful anti-Hungarian discourse became a completely normal and unfortunately tolerated phenomena during sports events in Romania
On the 9th of August, 2021, Sepsi OSK Sfântu Gheorghe played against Farul Constanța in the home town of the latter. The supporters of Farul Constanța were continuously chanting blatantly racist and xenophobic messages, which make the Hungarian community highly uncomfortable, uneasy and fearful. The famous anti-Hungarian slogan „Out with the Hungarians from the country” was also chanted. The openly racist supporters were not stopped by the authorities, not even when they were throwing objects and spitting towards the players of Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe during the game. ”I cannot bear this xenophobia anymore. I cannot accept this! We have gotten to the situation where we are afraid to play with teams that have powerful supporter groups. We are glad that they have ardent fans, but they should support their team, not attack us by saying we should leave the country. They have insulted Niczuly in every possible way and they were throwing bottles at him. That’s it, we cannot take this anymore. Are we bothering anyone with anything? We will withdraw, and that’s it!” declared Attila Hadnagy to GSP, a Romanian sports publication after the game. Our organization turned to the Romanian Football Federation and to the UEFA. The CS Farul Constanța football team was fined with 10.500 RON. Another incident targeting the Hungarian minority occurred during the football match between FK Csíkszereda and FCSB football clubs. The match took place in the home town of the former. During the whole match the supporters of FCSB displayed a strong anti-Hungarian behaviour. They chanted xenophobic chants, such as „This is Steaua. This is Bucharest. Just like Harghita and Covasna counties are Romanian lands”, and the above-mentioned well-known anti-Hungarian chant “Out with the Hungarians from the country”.
The Romanian authorities do very little to nothing in order to curb xenophobia at sports events
Our association filed a complaint to the Romanian Football Federation. We also turned to the football club. According to the club’s answer they are not responsible for the behavior of the supporters and there was no act of discrimination at the football match in case.
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