MINELRES: Romania: Bulletin DIVERS on Ethnic Minorities - 14 (97)/2004

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Divers Bulletin no. 14 (97) / April 19, 2004
News

"CLUJ WILL NEVER BE KOLOZSVAR", SAYS ULTRA-NATIONALIST LEADER
DISSIDENT HUNGARIANS IN ROMANIA TO RUN IN LOCAL ELECTIONS
HUNGARIAN OPPOSITION OFFICIAL SAYS BUDAPEST MUST BACK AUTONOMY IN
ROMANIA
SENATE REJECTS OPPOSITION MOTION AGAINST LIBERTY STATUE IN ARAD
JEWISH-ROMANIAN ACTRESS WHO PLAYS VIRGIN MARY SAYS "PASSION" WILL NOT
CAUSE ANTI-SEMITISM IN ROMANIA
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News

"CLUJ WILL NEVER BE KOLOZSVAR", SAYS ULTRA-NATIONALIST LEADER

CLUJ-NAPOCA � A Greater Romania Party law suit filed against the
Romanian Government has been successful at the Appeal Court stage,
Eurolang reported. If successful at the Supreme Court level it could
restrict the number of regions where minority language usage is
compulsory in local administration. The Local Administration Act adopted
in 2001 made the usage of minority languages compulsory in all areas
with an ethnic minority population of at least 20%. Governmental Decree
No. 1206/2001 established the way this law had to be implemented and in
which localities. Both decrees were based on the last available official
census data from 1992. As a new census carried out in 2002 found fewer
localities than in 1992 with a minimum of 20% minority language
speakers, the municipalities controlled by ultra-nationalist Greater
Romania Party (PRM) boycotted the the law. In Kolozsvar (Cluj), for
example, one of Romania�s biggest cities, where the proportion of
Hungarian speakers went down from 22.8% in 1992 to 18.96% in 2002, Mayor
Gheorghe Funar, also Chief Secretary of the PRM, refused to erect
bilingual public signs or to employ Hungarian speakers at the mayor�s
office. This led to the PRM case against the Government and the
subsequent Appeal Court ruling in Bucharest that the two above-mentioned
governmental decrees had to be amended according to the new census data
of 2002. The PRM proudly announced in its press communique that �Cluj
will never be Kolozsvar�. After the court decision, Funar called on the
Prefect of Cluj County, the local representative of the central
Government, to remove all bilingual signs that had already been placed
in more than 90 localities in the county. Senator Peter Eckstein-Kovacs
from the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), a lawyer
and ex-member of the working group on the European Convention, stressed
to Eurolang: �The two Decrees were still operative and I am sure the
Government will appeal the court ruling. Law No. 215 on local
administration only specified where the minority language usage was
compulsory, but it did not ban bilingualism anywhere else where it was
adopted or tolerated locally.� He found the decision an interference of
judiciary power in the state executive�s administration affairs.
Author: DIVERS


DISSIDENT HUNGARIANS IN ROMANIA TO RUN IN LOCAL ELECTIONS

COVASNA � Attila Tulit, deputy chairman of the Hungarian Civic Union
(UCM), announced on 8 April that the UCM has gathered the 25,000
signatures needed to run in the June local elections, RFE/RL reported.
Tulit said that in Covasna County alone, the UCM has gathered over
10,000 signatures. The UCM will be running mainly against candidates
from the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR). Officials of
that party have warned that splitting the Hungarian minority's vote
might diminish its representation at county level and have threatened to
expel from the UDMR candidates running on rival party lists. The UCM is
generally considered to be close to the Reformed Bishop Laszlo Tokes,
who was deposed as UDMR honorary chairman in February 2003.
Author: DIVERS


HUNGARIAN OPPOSITION OFFICIAL SAYS BUDAPEST MUST BACK AUTONOMY IN
ROMANIA

SFANTU-GHEORGHE � Zsolt Nemeth, deputy chairman of Hungary's main
opposition FIDESZ party, said on 12 April in Sfantu-Gheorghe, Romania,
that Hungary must back the efforts of Transylvanian Hungarians to
achieve autonomy, RFE/RL reported. Nemeth, on a private visit to the
Transylvanian town, said the national state "typical of the 19th
century" had been entrenched in "enclosure and poverty," whereas the
21st-century state would be based on autonomy, which "ensures the free
association of different communities." Nemeth said that in three weeks,
Hungary will become a EU member, whereas Romania "has yet to make
important steps toward integration in the EU." He said that while
Hungary should support Romania's integration, the Romanian state that
would join the EU should be one that has granted its Hungarian minority
in Transylvania "territorial and cultural autonomy."
Author: DIVERS


SENATE REJECTS OPPOSITION MOTION AGAINST LIBERTY STATUE IN ARAD

BUCHAREST � The Romanian Senate on 13 April rejected a motion submitted
by the ultranationalist Greater Romania Party (PRM) against the
intention to reerect the Liberty Monument in Arad representing 13
Hungarian generals executed by the Habsburgs in 1849, RFE/RL reported.
The PRM called its motion "The statue of the 13 Hungarian generals who
killed 40,000 Romanians should not be on Romanian territory." The motion
called for organizing a referendum on the reerection of the statue among
Arad inhabitants. Forty-six senators, including those representing the
PRM, the National Liberal Party (PNL), and the Democratic Party backed
the motion, which was rejected by 70 senators from the Social Democratic
Party (PSD) and Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR).
Author: DIVERS


JEWISH-ROMANIAN ACTRESS WHO PLAYS VIRGIN MARY SAYS �PASSION� WILL NOT
CAUSE ANTI-SEMITISM IN ROMANIA

BUCHAREST � Maia Morgenstern, the Jewish-Romanian actress who played the
Virgin Mary in "The Passion of the Christ," said the film would not
spark anti-Semitism in her country and instead should be seen as a work
of art, the Associated Press reported. "The Romanian public is cultured
and knowledgeable and (people) will see this movie as a work of art,"
Morgenstern, daughter of Holocaust survivors, told The Associated Press,
hours before the movie's premiere in Romania on Friday. Mel Gibson's
controversial film about Jesus' final hours before his death, which has
been a huge global box office success, has been criticized by some for
reviving the view that Jews killed Jesus Christ. Morgenstern, 42, who
plays the mother of Jesus, has been criticized by Jewish leaders for her
position. At a news conference in Bucharest on Friday, Morgenstern
acknowledged there were "manifestations" of anti-Semitism in Romania.
But in a telephone interview afterward, she denied the movie would spark
anti-Semitism in the former communist country. "It's like saying that if
we stage Othello in Romania, this will cause anti-Arab feelings," she
said. In the Shakespearean tragedy, Othello, a Moor, kills his wife
Desdemona, a European noblewoman, by smothering her to death with a
pillow in a jealous rage. Romania was a German ally during most of World
War II, and tens of thousands of Jews died in concentration camps.
Before World War II, there were about 760,000 Jews in Romania. An
estimated 420,000 were killed during the war. Today, about 6,000 Jews
live in Romania.
Author: DIVERS

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