Language Research

Updated (July 2003)

A young couple from Kolozsvár/Cluj has had to stay unmarried for more than two years because after the bridegroom said “yes” to the bride in Hungarian, the couple's mother tongue and only then he said “yes” in Romanian, the state language, the registrar refused to marry them.

Zsolt Herédi and Katalin Füsy were to be wed in Kolozsvár/Cluj on May 31, 2001 but the registrar Vasile Gherman after hearing “igen” (“yes” in Hungarian) walked out of the room, abandoning the wedding ceremony.

They tried to stop him and promised to speak only Romanian but he did not want to continue anyway. Gherman later issued a protocol confirming that he refused due to the fact that Herédi spoke Hungarian during the ceremony.

The Law on Local Administration, issued just a few days before this incident happened, allows wedding ceremonies in the languages of ethnic minorities in those places where a minority constitutes 20 percent of the population. According to the 1992 Census, 22.7 percent of Cluj's population are ethnic Hungarians.

However, the couple did not ask for a Hungarian wedding because such a ceremony would be unthinkable in a local authority led by the Chief Secretary of Romania's most extreme nationalist party, the Greater Romania Party (PRM). In addition, the city authorities stated that they would not apply the law on minority language usage in administration, because they suspected that the proportion of ethnic Hungarians in Kolozsvár/Cluj was less than 20 percent.

The couple sued the registrar for impeding their marriage. After nine hearings the Court of Administration declared Gherman's protocol invalid and allowed the couple to continue in their wedding ceremony according to the law. The court; however, rejected couple's request for compensation of their material and moral damages. Both parties appealed against the decision: Herédi maintained his demand for compensation, while Gherman requested to move the case to another city and also to change it from an administrative to a civil one. After half-a-year, Herédi's lawyer found out that the case had been changed into a civil one but the request for moving it to a different city had been rejected.

The Cluj Court after three hearings, on May 26, 2003, ruled that the couple was right, but no damages would be paid.

Herédi and Füsy are determined not to stop here. They were ready for a compromise to repeat the whole ceremony only in Romanian, but they were refused. “We want justice and we are prepared to establish the truth at all Romanian court levels and even in Strasbourg, if necessary.”

Füsy and Herédi's case is not unique in Kolozsvár. Other couples face similar intolerance and humiliation at the registrar's office. Some have to repeat the ceremony after they have said “yes” in Hungarian during a Romanian-language ceremony. Others are only warned not to speak their mother tongue.

Ethnic Hungarians in the city are waiting for the next census to see whether they constitute above or below 20 percent.

Source: Eurolang News, Kolozsvár/Cluj, June 27, 2003, by Áron Balló, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4299

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Updated (February 2004)

THE USE OF MINORITY LANGUAGES IN PUBLIC PLACES

In Cluj/Kolozsvár a part of the population has demanded that minority language speakers should not use their mother tongue in public places. An increasing number of complaints have been received from people reporting about this matter.

On February 10, 2004 an ethnic Hungarian student was taken to the police because he used his mother tongue in the presence of a policeman who came to check a neighbor's complaint about noise. The policeman first warned him that he was not speaking Romanian correctly and pointed out that he lived in Romania where Romanian is the official language. The student was then taken to the police station in handcuffs.

Another Ph.D. student received a heavy fine because he had no lights on his bicycle and he talked Hungarian to his girlfriend while being checked by the police. The police denied both allegations.

In the majority of case like these people pay the fines and keep silent because they fear of possible police reprisal.

Senator Péter Ecsktein-Kovács of Kolozs/Cluj County considered these cases as very serious and said that he would ask the Minister of Internal Affairs about this matter.

EDUCATION

Due to re-opening of a Hungarian language school Aranyospolyán/Poiana (a district of Torda/Turda city in Kolozs/Cluj County) campaigns to be a separate municipality.

Aranyospolyán was attached to Torda in 1968. Today its population is constituted by a 40-percent Hungarian minority and a 10-percent Roma minority.

The Hungarian-language section at the local bilingual (Romanian-Hungarian) school was closed in 2003, as the Hungarian-speaking pupils preferred to go to downtown schools. However, currently 80 percent of the Aranyospolyán population approve their administrative separation from Torda for linguistic and economic reasons.

Around 11 percent of Torda's population are ethnic Hungarians, Aranyospolyán included.

Source: Eurolang News, Kolozsvár/Cluj, February 19, 2004, by Áron Balló, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4424

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Updated (March 2004)

THREAT OF CUTBACKS IN MINORITY LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Anticipated amendments to the Law on Education will probably deteriorate the opportunities of ethnic minorities to study in their mother tongue, especially in rural areas.

The Law on Education is expected to be amended with the introduction of a quota system which stipulates that schools with less than 200 pupils will have to be closed. This will negatively affect dozens, if not hundreds of smaller schools which have already had problems with establishing the classes for minority students because of the low birth rate in the country.

The main impediment to minority schools in the areas where ethnic minorities are dispersed and where students attend mixed (Romanian and Hungarian) classes is the lack of qualified teachers and discouragement of the authorities. Such schools will be either closed down or their existence will be extremely difficult.

In order to solve this situation RMDSZ (the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) has launched a project to set up regional school centers which would gather the Hungarian-speaking children from closed schools. School buses running between localities should help as well as boarding schools for the ethnic Hungarian children in the localities where schools with Hungarian classes survived.

A map showing the areas where Hungarian speakers live in Romania will also be produced with the help of the Diaspora Foundation, an NGO taking care of the dispersed ethnic Hungarian minority.

The survey will cover 1,200 schools with Hungarian-language classes from the 1,020 localities in Romania.

Source: Eurolang News, Kolozsvár/Cluj, March 1, 2004, http://www.eurolang.net/

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Updated (July 2004)

ANOTHER MARRIAGE BANNED FOR SPEAKING HUNGARIAN

The situation when a wedding ceremony was not completed due to a language used by the couple again stirred up emotions in Romania. This time a Romanian registrar broke off the ceremony not only because the couple said “yes” to each other except Romanian also in Hungarian1, but because they added French “oui” as well.

The wedding was supposed to be held on the day of the June local elections, when the anti-Hungarian Mayor of Cluj/Kolozsvár and Chief Secretary of the nationalist Greater Romania Party (PRM), Gheorghe Funar, lost his seat.

András Dombi, an ethnic Hungarian born in Kolozsvár, who lived in France for several years, intended to marry Diana Toma, a Romanian speaker from Cluj. He allegedly knew nothing about the previous marriage refusals based on language discrimination. In order to reflect his multilingual identity, he first said “da” in the official language to his bride, to which he added “igen” in Hungarian, his mother tongue, and “oui” in French, as he is both a Romanian and French citizen. Hearing this the registrar immediately rushed out of the room. After he came back, he declared that they had actually tainted the Romanian language by uttering words during an official ceremony in other languages.

According to Mr. Dombi, it is inadmissible for the country aiming to join the European Union to handle its citizens in this way so they decided to sue the Registrar's Office.

The Law on Local Administration makes it possible for ethnic minorities, wherever they constitute more than 20 percent of the local population, to hold the whole wedding ceremony in their mother tongue. However, Kolozsvár only has around 19 percent of ethnic Hungarians, according to the 2002 Census.

Ms. Toma also pointed out that in a Romanian-language service nothing prohibits the couples from saying words in other languages to each other.

Source: Eurolang News, Kolozsvár/Cluj, July 5, 2004, by Áron Balló, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4665

¹ The cases of former MP Jenõ Mátis and Erika Halmágyi or Zsolt Herédi and Katalin Füsy are the best known and most publicized ones.

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Updated (March 2006)

GYÖRGY FRUNDA, CENSURED BY ROMANIAN POLITICIANS FOR HIS TASK IN THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a recommendation on the concept of nation to be approved by the Council of Ministers. The recommendation was based on a proposal presented by György Frunda, a leader of the Romanian delegation in the PACE and a member of Hungarian minority party, which is in coalition on Romanian government.

The Assembly recommended inviting those member states that have not yet signed and ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter to do so. Then, they suggested that all the members should foster the recognition of the cultural rights of the minorities in their internal instruments and reject any attempts to promote an ethnic purity of the state. Furthermore, they should comply their national constitutions with the contemporary European standards, which call on each state to integrate all its citizens, irrespective of their ethno-cultural background.

The adoption of such a recommendation by the PACE has sparked controversy among the Romanian politicians. For example, Mircea Geoana, a leader of the opposition Social Democrat Party has declared that the concept of nation put forward by Frunda is against the Romanian constitution and, therefore, he should be dismissed as the head of the Romanian delegation. More controversial was the argument stated by a vice-president of the Conservative Party, Nicolae Popa. He said that Frunda is dangerous for Romanian national interests and he should leave the country and settle in Hungary.

The recommendations, though, are not legally binding in Romania until the Council of Ministers approves them.

Source: Mercator News, February 2006, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/notis-anual.cfm?lg=gb#873

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Updated (April 2006)

HUNGARIAN SPEAKERS IN ROMANIA SEEK HELP FROM OTHER EUROPEAN NATIONAL MINORITIES OVER AUTONOMY

The struggle for autonomy by Hungarian minority in Romania has intensified. Different NGOs and lobbyists have approached some European bodies in order to raise their support.

A delegation of the Szekler National Council, an NGO fighting for the autonomy of Szeklerland¹, visited South Tyrol, the German and Ladin speaking autonomous region in Italy. They spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister of the region, Martha Stocker, a member of European Parliament, Michl Ebner, and to Christoph Pann, the President of the South Tyrolean Ethnic Groups Institute on how Hungarian minority seeks their autonomy in eastern Transylvania with a demand for language rights. Speaking to the press, Mr. Csapó, the president of the Hungarian NGO, said that they asked the MEP to endorse Szeklerland autonomy in the European institutions. In addition, he asked the Deputy Minister to support the idea of self-determination for Hungarians in Szekler region with the help of the South Tyrolean Government, at the UN Security Council and its Chief Secretary.

In Romania, a major demonstration of around 20,000 people, called the Szekler Great Assembly, was held in Odorheiu Secuiesc/Székelyudvarhely on 15 March 2006. This event was meant to confirm the desire for autonomy.

As a result, the participants adopted a manifesto, in which the Assembly called for the adoption of the Statutes of the Autonomous Szekerland, the elimination of the "national state" clause from the Constitution of Romania. Adding the points to make Romania's EU access conditional on their being an autonomous region and to make UN supervise the process of establishing the autonomy.

In April, Olli Rehn, the Enlargement Commissioner of the European Commission, did not mention any problems related to language minorities in Romania and told the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee that the situation of the ethnic Hungarians in the country has improved since the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians as an elected parliamentary force, had been in power. Mr. Rehn also added that there was no problem with minority language education at the high school level, and that the language problems could be solved by private universities. He commented on the failure of Romania to adopt a bill on the legal status of national minorities and that the EC was monitoring this bill. It is due to be amended according to the recommendations of the Venice Committee. Moreover, the commissioner did not find any outstanding problems in the minority language usage connected with administration and justice. He only suggested that more police officers that speak minority languages be hired.

His comments generated a joint reaction from different NGOs. These included the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation (an NGO based in New York City), the Bolyai Initiative Committee (a group of teachers at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj/Kolozsvár fighting for the re-opening of the state owned Hungarian-language University), the Transylvanian Hungarian National Council (an NGO for the autonomy of Hungarian speakers in the whole Transylvanian region) and the Szekler National Council. They invited all individuals and legal entities in Transylvania to write to Mr. Rehn on what kind of language and ethnic discrimination they were facing in Romania. Some of the first e-mails complained about the lack of cultural autonomy for Hungarian speakers and the need for the territorial autonomy of Szeklerland.

Source: Eurolang News, April 20, 2006 by Aron Balló http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2592&Itemid=1&lang=en

1. a region in Romania inhabited mainly by ethnic Hungarians

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Updated (May 2006)

STUDY FINDS THAT 20 PERCENT OF ROMANIAN LOCAL AUTHORITIES DO NOT RESPECT MINORITY LANGUAGE LAW

Romanian State Secretary and the Chief of Interethnic Relations Office (DRI), Attila Markó, launched a new study made by the Interethnic Relations Research Centre in Cluj/Kolozsvár on how the language rights of ethnic minorities were respected in Romania.

Speaking to the press, Markó said that different regulations on minority language usage show that the rights are respected in 80 percent of cases.

The Law on Local Administration, for instance, makes compulsory to have bilingual signs, and states that documents issued by the local authorities must be in the minority language as well as the staff hired in locality where a minimum of 20 percent of population belong to a national minority must speak the respective language. The study revealed that out of 1,300 localities no bilingual signs were found in 20 percent of them. The language legislation was not respected in 7 percent of the total cases in areas where the minority comprised 20 or 50 percent of the local population. On the other hand, the situation was found satisfying wherever the ethnic groups formed the local majority. Nevertheless, the biggest problems were in the localities where the national minority comprised less than 20 percent of the population.

The study included data collected in Romania in 2005 on the ethnic Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Greek, Polish, Roma, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Tatar, Turkish and Ukrainian minorities and also facts gathered in 2006 on the ethnic Hungarians and Germans.

In addition, other interesting facts came out of the research. For example, 5 to 20 percent of people with Hungarian as their mother tongue understand Romanian but do not speak it and 2 percent of them do not even understand the state language.

István Horváth, the director of the Research Centre on Interethnic Relations, said that the survey was not designed to find lawbreakers in order to punish them, but to highlight positive examples that could be followed by the more problematic authorities.

Source: Eurolang News, April 30, 2006 by Áron Balló http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2605&Itemid=1&lang=en

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Updated (January 2007)

DISMISSED HUNGARIAN LECTURERS FAIL TO GET RE-INSTATED

Two lecturers at the Transylvanian University Babes-Bolyai (UBB) in Cluj, who were dismissed last November after they erected some signs in Hungarian, have not been re-instated in their posts. "The reasons for their dismissal are the continuous spread of lies about this institution and the country, instigation at inter-ethnic hostility against the EU's values and injurious statements against UBB teachers, aggressive management of the university's assets, which features extremism," the UBB spokesperson, Cristina Nistor, said. In fact, "aggressive management" refers to the recently erected bilingual signs, such as "no smoking" written in the Hungarian language throughout UBB buildings. They were all taken down, and the University filed a complaint at the Police charging the lecturers with vandalism.

Subsequently, more than 75 percent of the Hungarian speaking staff signed a petition against this decision.

Afterwards, the Romanian Minister of Education has decided to establish a commission of inquiry on the issue. MEPs expect the Romanian Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban, to investigate the events as well.

Following joint protests from different organizations, private persons and political parties, the Romanian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mihai Rasvan Ungureanu, has confirmed that Hungarian language signs will be erected on the Transylvanian University Babes-Bólyai premises.

Mr. Ungureanu also replied to a letter from the Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, written in December, over the two lecturers who were dismissed for placing Hungarian signs in the university buildings. The Minister informed his Hungarian counterpart about the University's Senate's decision to re-establish the presence of Hungarian in the 150-year-old university. Now, there will be signage in Hungarian and German and the recommendations that the busts of Hungarian and German celebrities will be erected and that lecture rooms will be named after Hungarian and German cultural figures as well. The decision comes into force on 1 July 2007.

In his letter, the Romanian Minister referred to the lecturers' situation stating, "that the university acted autonomously in the matter". He considers the whole signage affair as a regrettable misunderstanding, and not a principle problem but one of procedure.

The spokesman for the Hungarian Ministry for Foreign Affairs underlined the Hungarian standpoint: "the sacking of the lecturers was an exaggerated and undue measure. This unfair procedure is not in harmony with European norms and the multicultural spirit, which Romania accepted when joining the European Union. The safeguarding of certain rights should not be waived, even when it concerns the autonomy of universities."

Source: Eurolang News, January 17 and January 25, 2007 by Marianne Tharan-Trieb

http://www.eurolang.net/

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