State Secretary of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry for Bilateral Relations Tamas Menzer called the oppression of the Hungarian national minority in Ukrainian Transcarpathia unacceptable and called on local authorities to stop “atrocities” against the Hungarians.
⠀
Earlier, the Ukrainian language ombudsman Taras Kremin said that schools in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, where many ethnic Hungarians live, revealed problems in organizing education in the Ukrainian language. According to local media reports, Hungarian flags were removed from public institutions in the city of Mukachevo and local villages, and several heads of Hungarian institutions close to the Society of Hungarian Culture of Transcarpathia were fired.
⠀
“Anti-Hungarian decisions and actions are, of course, unacceptable, we condemn what happened. We call on the local authorities to immediately stop the atrocities against the Hungarians. We call on the state authorities of Ukraine to immediately do everything to cancel the anti-Hungarian decisions and restore the previous state,” Menzer wrote on Facebook.
⠀
According to him, Hungary expects that “Ukrainian leaders will do everything to maintain stability in Transcarpathia,” despite the conflict. At the same time, Budapest “does not fully understand how anti-Hungarian decisions and measures help Ukraine” in the conflict, said a representative of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.
⠀
“If Ukraine wants to be a member of the European Union, the constant and systematic oppression of the national community and deprivation of its rights is unacceptable,” Mentzer added.
⠀
He also said that so far such incidents have occurred only in Mukachevo and its environs, and expressed the hope that anti-Hungarian measures will not be encountered elsewhere in Transcarpathia.
