We condemn firmly the actions of the Romanian authorities against
Szeklerland and the Szekler people
Some days ago we were informed, that a letter was sent to more embassies in Bucharest in the name of the non-existing “Council for Szekler Self-Determination”, which denigrates the Szekler National Council and personally its president. Regarding to this we consider extremely important to state the following:
As it is known, the Szekler National Council always acted in peaceful, democratic way for the autonomy of Szeklerland, seeking – unfortunately without success till now – for dialogue with the authorities. We want to make it very clear once more that we did not and will not support any kind of violence! But we also consider important to mention, that we will not tolerate nor the attacks against our community.
Related to the case of Beke István the Szekler National Council made public its position at the beginning of this month, pointing out that the way how the authorities acted reminds of the darkest communist era. Even if we presume that he is guilty, it is the responsibility of the authorities to respect strictly the legal procedures and to avoid two things: to violate the rights of Beke István and to give the possibility for anyone to criminalize the whole Szekler community. Unfortunately and in a condemnable way they failed in both cases. Just for possessing some fireworks available in public stores and airsoft equipment, a man cannot be charged for terrorism and imprisoned, this is a clear abuse. And what is far more dangerous, the authorities did nothing to stop the – until now verbal - violence against the Szekler people as a whole, that invaded the media after Beke was arrested. Even first line politicians made hard and irresponsible declaration about the Szekler community, affirming that the authorities were far too tolerant with the Szeklers, and that led to the appearance of the Szekler terrorism.
We expect the authorities to end the investigations as soon as possible and to stop violating the rights of Beke István, just because – at least it seems so – he is Szekler.
And besides this specific case we expect the authorities to end immediately their escalating fight and harassment against the whole Szekler community. We expect our symbols to be tolerated and respected, our human and specific minority right to be fulfilled, the leaders of our community not to be harassed for their political activity, and finally our call for dialogue to be accepted. One can observe that instead of these, the situation of our community is getting worth and worth. The Szekler National Council sent numerous signals about concrete cases to various institutions and organizations, as well to the media, and will continue to do that, with two clear goals: to show the world how in reality Romania is handling the problems of the national minorities, and to convince the authorities to stop these actions and not to discriminate and provoke the Szekler community.
At the beginning of this statement we mentioned, that the Council for Szekler Self-Determination does not even exist. Finally let us remind that this April a similar letter like the one we mentioned above was sent to many international organization from another non-existing organization, called Székely Demokratikus Szövetség. It is more than possible, that the source of both letters is a Romanian secret service, because as the Szekler National Council made it public earlier (see: http://sznt.sic.hu/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=320:autonomy-is-a-not-a-threat-but-a-source-of-strength&catid=13:koezlemenyek&Itemid=18 and http://sznt.sic.hu/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=294:the-romanian-intelligence-service-as-preserver-of-the-methods-of-the-securitate&catid=13:koezlemenyek&Itemid=18), the Romanian authorities consider autonomy a threat and are fighting against it by all means. But if this will confirm, that will claim a serious answer from the European and international organizations, as in our opinion misleading governments and international organizations cannot be tolerated.
Gyergyószentmiklós/Gheorgheni, the 27th of December 2015
ÁRUS Zsolt
President of the Szekler Council of Gyergyószék