An alarming case

The Democratic Alliance of the Hungarians in Romania held its congress last week. For this occasion a public message of President Klaus Iohannis appeared on the official homepage of the Romanian presidency addressing the participants of the congress. There was great satisfaction among the local Hungarian media regarding this message, as it happened for the first time that a Romanian political leader admitted, that there is much to do regarding the respecting of the rights of national minorities in Romania. More importantly, – Iohannis added that the authorities must also take into consideration the culture and identity of the people living in specific areas of the country, when creating administrative regions.

After five days, the original message was replaced with another one, which is totally different from the original, except for the first paragraph. The new version of the message, having the same date as the original (17 April), can be found here:

http://presidency.ro/?_RID=det&tb=date&id=15632&_PRID=ag

The whole Hungarian community was astonished when a journalist discovered this change. Let us stress it very firmly, that there was no mistake, yesterday the original message was still available in the Google web-cache, at the end of this statement can be seen a screen-capture with its first paragraphs, including the reference to the problems of the national minorities (at the bottom, highlighted): Even though we have a successful model, there is still much to do. There are still many unsolved problems, desires of the national minorities regarding applying in practice all the rights stipulated by the laws, but also the need for better guaranties for protecting and promoting their national identity.

There were many journalists, who were asking for an explanation regarding this issue, probably that was the reason why a short statement was published on the same home page (http://www.presidency.ro/?_RID=det&tb=date&id=15648&_PRID= ):

Clarification of the Department of Public Communication

Related to the press information regarding the message of the President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Iohannis, with the occasion of the 12th congress of the Democratic Alliance of the Hungarians in Romania we want to make it clear, that the message was presented by Mr. Laurențiu Ștefan, presidential adviser, in the form that it is available today on the site of the Administration of the Presidency. No other version can be considered authentic.

Department of the Public Communication

The 23rd of April 2015

The explanation, that we are dealing with a simple mistake here, is not plausible at all. We cannot believe, that without the approval of the President someone dared to publish on the official homepage of the Presidency a message, containing affirmations that are perfectly true, but not in accordance with the official dogma of the Romanian authorities, which stipulates, that the minority issue is solved in an exemplary way in Romania. So this situation raises a very serious question: who is leading in fact Romania? Who is (or are) strong enough to force the President of the Country to change an official message which was available on the official homepage of the presidency for five days, thus, accepting to appear as ridiculous in the eyes of the whole world? We consider that this is a question that has to worry not only the Hungarian community living in Romania.

Tg-Mures/Marosvásárhely, the 24th of April 2015

Izsák Balázs,

President of the Szekler National Council