Mihai Tîrnoveanu, the leader of the Romanian naționalist Calea Neamului group, was fined for trying to disrupt the 15 March national holiday celebrations in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe), a Hungarian-majority town in Transylvania, Szekelyhon.ro reports.
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó of Hungary was also attending the event which Tîrnoveanu attempted to derail. He brought a giant banner with him, with ‘Transylvania is Romanian land’ written on it. However, he did not get to show his sign to Minister Szijjártó, as it had been confiscated by local authorities before the start of the festivities. Nevertheless, he did post to his Facebook page about his protest.
In his post, he also implies that he believes Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary has territorial claims against Romania, writing:
‘Our message delivered to the Foreign Minister of Hungary, while surrounded by 3,000 Hungarians, at Sepsiszentgyörgy: Something is eternal: Transylvania is Romanian land! The gendarmes, at the direct order of political deciders, brutally tore our banner off, taking us out of the crowd while being applauded by the Hungarians…It doesn’t matter that Viktor Orbán and other Hungarian officials make unofficial visits to Romania carrying out policies that have as a primary strategic goal to obtain Transylvania’s territorial autonomy and then annex it to Hungary. It matters that three Romanians show a message with Transylvania as Romanian land, and these Romanians must be eliminated in order not to disturb the Hungarian officials with this historical truth.’
As Tîrnoveanu himself reported in his post, he was arrested at the scene, taken to the local police station for interrogation, and ended up getting a fine of 10,000 RON ($2,200).
After the disruptor was detained, the 15 March celebrations went ahead and concluded without any further complications.
Tîrnoveanu has engaged in anti-Hungarian provocation in the past. In December 2023, he visited the same town, Sepsiszentgyörgy, with a few of his supporters. Then, Mayor Árpád Antal was the target of their protest (or maybe even harassment), but the incident went down without any major conflict, and no arrests had to be made. Mayor Antal then issued a public statement saying that Hungarians and Romanians are living together in peace in his town.
Sepsiszentgyörgy currently has a population of 50,000 people, about 35,000 of whom are ethnic Hungarians.
They also have a professional football team in the Romanian top division, which has just made the championship playoffs after defeating Petrolul Ploiești 2–1 in an away game. Needless to say, Sepsi OSK fans and players routinely face anti-Hungarian discriminatory chants from the stands. It was no different in Ploiești either, where the referee even had to stop the game for three minutes because of those chants. One Sepsi player was also hit in the head with a lighter thrown by a fan.
In addition, Tîrnoveanu is not the only figure in Romanian public life known for their rabid anti-Hungarian rhetoric. Senator Diana Șoșoacă is also a Romanian nationalist with wild anti-Hungarian views. For example, in October 2023, she brought a banner of a ‘Greater Romania’ map to a Senate session, and disrupted fellow Senator Lóránd Turos’ speech by shouting discriminatory statements against our people.
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