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to combat the epidemic
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 (...).”
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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.
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”.
Blatant and hateful anti-Hungarian discourse became a completely normal and unfortunately tolerated phenomena during sports events in Romania
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.
Observations and recommendations: Xenophobic, anti-Hungarian attitudes have become a common phenomenon among some Romanian supporters. It became commonplace for some Romanian supporters to use football events in order to spread hate speech. In their approaches to tackling hate speech and acts of hatred in sports national bodies, institutions, organizations, sport federations and clubs etc. should clearly distinguish between measures aiming at preventing such phenomena and measures of handling cases that already occurred. It is highly important to stress that sport clubs should take action in combating hate speech among their supporters, by establishing clear regulations and imposing sanctions, such as removing offenders or in some extreme cases even permanently banning them. In terms of sanctions, it is more effective to sanction sport clubs, rather than individuals or groups of individuals, firstly because, sanctions often make perpetrators more hostile and are rarely conducive to long-term solutions, and secondly, penalizing teams/sport clubs will motivate them to more effectively monitor the acts of hate speech committed by their own supporters, especially in the case of repeat offenders. Regarding the latter issue, membership cards for supporters might be a useful way of keeping track of repeat offenders and thus imposing adequate sanctions for these perpetrators.
The case of the illegal appropriation of the military cemetery in the Uz Valley is still a grave concern. The site in question has been the source of disharmony for several years between the local administrations of Dărmănești/Dormánfalva in Bacău county and Sânmartin/ Csíkszentmárton in Harghita county, but a 1968 law clearly states that the valley belongs to the latter. Nevertheless, attempts by Harghita county officials to impede the appropriation of the cemetery through legal means have so far failed.
In April 2019, Hungarians from Romania learned that the local government of Dărmănești/ Dormánfalva (Bacău county) illegally took ownership of a First World War German, Austrian and Hungarian military cemetery in Valea Uzului/Úz-völgye (Uz Valley), actually belonging to the jurisdiction of the village of Sânmartin/Csíkszentmárton in neighbouring Harghita county. There is a general consensus among historians that Hungarian soldiers from the Miskolc region in Hungary are resting here. The fights that took place in this Valley during the First and the Second World Wars are heavily documented and the identity of the buried soldiers are confirmed.
The illegal appropriation of the military cemetery in the Uz Valley has sparked an intense interethnic conflict
However, officials from Dărmănești/Dormánfalva unfoundedly claim that 52 Romanian soldiers were also buried in this cemetery, despite the fact that the actual burial ground of the Romanian soldiers was identified and located several kilometres away.
